Festivalis der Frankfurter

It's a little known fact that I love festivals of any kind. And if it's not as well known as I thought it was, then it should be because nothing could be closer to the truth! Festival fun lifts my spirits and makes me a better, more complete person for days afterward. I am still riding the high from the festival me and my roommates attended in Frankfurt last Saturday. Since we had a day off (and it might be our last for a very long time to come) the three of us set out to to see some of our beloved Deutschland. After successfully navigating the train station-which was a huge feat in and of itself-we arrived at our destination. With my guidebook (thanks Joe!) and Paula's GPS (a lifesaver, by the way. We never leave home without it) in hand Paula, Liv and I (and our new friend Frank, who joined us on the train and out stayed his welcome) visited some renown sites in Frankfurt, such as the opera house or "Alte Oper". It was burned down in WWII but rebuilt shortly after in its original Italian Renaissance style. Plays and operas are still held here today and I hope to make it to at least one before my time is up here. We also so Goethehaus, which was Johann Wolfgang Goethe's family home. I hope you all remember that Goethe is a very famous German author who wrote the play Faust. After that we made our way to Romberg. This is an old square located in the center of town that contains the Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen, or the fountain of justice. Other sites included the Nikolaikirche (church with many statues of St. Nicholas), and the Eschenheimer Turm.

After feasting on some glorious currywurst (a bratwurst, or hot dog, covered in a kind of ketchup with an oh-so-good curry powder sprinkled on top) we made our way down to the River Main. To our surprise either side of the river was lines with white tents and there were hundreds of people strolling up and down the streets. Not being able to read German (yet) we had no idea that we had come on the day of some international festival. What a great surprise. We saw Toto perform some of their top songs, which made me so happy I almost cried, and we spent a couple hours walking up and down, seeing what all the tents had to offer. I absolutely loved the atmosphere: the smells of the different kinds of international fare, the nutella and banana crepe I bought and downed in under a minute, the fathers with their children firmly attached to their shoulders, more often than not eating an ice cream cone, the many different languages you could hear being spoken on either side of you. . . . it was just the way I wanted to spend my Saturday evening. I am loving Germany more and more every day.