Franfurt Day 1

During the first night, an important discovery was made.

Dad!, you snore loud!

I was so tempted to blow the whistle [traveling is like camping with class, so I sleep with a wissle/compass/led light around my neck].


Today the weather was less favorable than last night, It was colder, windier and rainy.

We had walked less than a block away from the Hotel, when my dad decided to turn around, and go back to add more layers of clothing.

Me, on the other hand, I was joking that *I am from Bilbao* so I do not need extra clothing.
With my $16.00 dollars Stevens jacket, and the Adidas wind breaker, I was doing fine.
Except from my face, my hands and my feet (I guess that my extremely ventilated mesh design hiking shoes that I bought in Arizona are not really the optimum choice for cold, raining and windy 8 degrees Celsius of Germany).

Well actually it did bother me a little bit that the wind kept blowing my hair in my face, so I thought getting a sports hat. Yet, when I found a few for sale, I did not like them. They seemed so crappy. So I went for the wool German hat.

With great efforts of fighting wind, rain and the unfamiliarities of the German street names (meaning we did a wide *touristic* route) we made it to the Rathaus Romer Frankfurt Am Main.

There we took a break, and had some drinks (more beer). Sitting there, waiting for the elderies to recover their strengths (Dad I love you anyways), I got a little bit chill (all right, more than a little bit, I was shaking, my hands where red, and I was unable to articulate any recognizable words).

Fortunately once we got back on track, and because I was doing zig-zags on the pedestrian streets (to see both sides of them), I quickly recover my traditional *I am from Bilabo* body heat.

Looking for a place to have lunch, we bumped into a Dominican restaurant. The entrance where some stairs that went underground, with a peculiar design of curvy shapes on the walls, and curved cave style ceilings.

Once we where in *the cave*, we were welcomed with Merengue music, ultraviolet lights, a disco type mirrors ceiling ball, a picture of Maria with a candle on it, flags of some centro american countries on the walls (including the Panama flag), and a Latino Spanish speaking waitress.

The food menu was in Spanish (but with German price level). I asked for what I miss the most, chicken, white rice, patacones and porotos.

The serving size was latino style, a decent amount of chiken, not to many patacones (I guess it is pricy to import them), a generousous portion of rice, a small salad and porotos.

Although I was not too convinced of the *antro* where we where eating, I quickly changed my mind after pouring the porotos on top of the rice and tasting it. It was just like home.
I left nothing on the plate.

For desert we where offered a digestive drink (a ginebra like cherish shot glass). Not bad.
We (well, actually dad) tipped the guy with 5Euros (that is $8.30).
The guy was grateful, and explaining us what kind of environment they are looking to create. I think we where the only customers to stop by in a long time.

After a generousous nap at the warm an fuzzy hotel, we took a hike back (on the sex street) to the Hauptbahnhof train station.

The magnitude of the iron dome, the coming and going of travelers, the constant announcement and last minute calls for high speed trains on the speakers, gave me a sensation of *fast lane* excitement. For a moment I wished I could just take a backpack and leave somewhere. I guess the traveling phenomena is contagious.

After finding the information for the Kholn train, we took off. There where plenty of small restaurants and shops at the station, however we where looking for a more *traditional* place to eat. We ended up in a tabern style place, and ordered the traditional golashsupe, a thick meat and spicy wich I learned that is also a Russian traditional one.

There was a rokola kind music station, and there was always someone coming to it to add some coins, and put some great music. Most of the time it was American music, however they also played some German titles as well.

The people where, I guess, I little bit happy, as they where dancing to the rithim (from within their seats) others would stand up momentarily to enfatize the movement of the electric guitar.
A guy in particular I saw talking tru his shoe. I guess that one was way loaded on bier.

Here, at the Bier-Bregel I learned two important words.
1. Kleine shnap [yup, I had two shots]
2. Rechnung bitte.[and asked for the bill].

Made it back to the Hotel by almost midnight.

Today was a good day.