Iceland to Frankfurt:
The flight to Keflavik (the international airport in Iceland) was long, but more comfortable than the last time. Somehow I managed to book Business class tickets without realizing it, and we were seated up front in the 2x2 seats. My seat companion was a business man from the UK who didn't think the seat setup was all that great, because when the person in front of you leans their seat back, the roomy comfort disappears.
Nevertheless, we were greeted with a glass of champagne and some nibbles as the plane continued to load.
The Icelandair flight attendants are without exception beautiful, poised and efficient. Dinner was smoked salmon.
The seat-back display gave us many entertainment options to get us through the six-hour flight. We had music, movies, TV shows, lots of different types of map displays, and Berlitz language lessons.
As we were approaching the airport in Frankfurt, I looked down to see the road challenges I would soon face – roundabouts and the Autobahn!
Dealing with the Frankfurt airport was easy – all the signs are bilingual, and all the people directing human traffic seemed to be tri- or more lingual. Got our luggage, got our rental car, all is right with the world – except I couldn't get the car (standard shift) into reverse! We pushed, pulled, looked for buttons, tugged, everything except what the rental car attendant showed me (casually as if he was sick of showing this to a million tourists a year): There's a sort of collar around the fabric that drapes the base of the stick shift, and you have to slide that up to get the car to go into reverse.
Problem solved, we followed the Ausfahrt signs and studiously attempted to avoid the Autobahn while looking for our hotel. We ended up lost, of course, delightfully so. We found a parking spot along the River Main and took pictures. We tried to find our way across to the north side of the river, but I got honked at while attempting to turn left. We ended up running around in circles in Burgel. I wish I'd remembered to turn my GPS on with tracking so I could upload it and make you laugh at me. But laugh anyway – it was fun.
We made it across the river, and then the challenge was finding our hotel, which is at the end of a short stretch of a road that is actually quite long if you count its name, but really a series of short disconnected stretches. More going in circles … finally the GPS comes out … an illegal U-turn … and we made it! We checked into a small but beautiful room at Hotel Mainstation, with finishings you'd find in a place three times the cost in the USA.
We had to ask how to use the electricity in our room – turns out there's a (very obvious, except to us) slot that we put our room keycard into that activates the electricity. I'm guessing this is a cost-saving device along with the motion-sensor lights in the hallways. Keeps the stupid tourists from using electricity when they're not even around!
Our host is Vladimir, who I think has Russian as his preferred language. Dmitri assists (he has excellent English, so translates, plus Italian, German and Russian), along with Giovanni (Italian and English, at the very least). They are all so courteous and polite, and we spent time hanging out over maps, with Vladimir pointing out places we'd highlighted (“No! No! Is bad! Heidelberg good!”) and Dmitri translating as needed.
We were pointed to the nearby beer garden, where we had an excellent meal of Obatzer mit Bauernbrot (4,80 euros) and Frikadellen mit Zwiwwelsosse and french fries (8,80 euros), all of which we shared. And of course we had beer! I had a dark beer and Mom had a lager.
And then, after too many hours of lack of sleep (I tried to sleep on the plane, but it was just too noisy, even with earplugs), I was exhausted and was asleep and snoring by 8:30pm local time (8 hours ahead of Mountain Time).
Today, an amended route, thanks to Vladimir.
1 comment:
the beer looks good!
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