5 weeks of Europe: Goodbye Frankfurt

Yesterday was a productive one! I set out to find a supermarket and had a lovely walk. The weather was gorgeous and only a little bit chilly. I discovered the waterfront and people running and biking reminded me a bit of Portland. Sabine had told me the name of these trees but I forget. They line the walkways and in summer the leaves grow and create a canopy so you are walking down this enclosed pretty aisle of leaves and trees.

Here are the leaves just starting to grow:

I found a neat statue that I liked and snapped a few pictures. Born in the year of the boar, yeah!

From there I sat by the river and enjoyed the view a bit:

A nice walk across the pedestrian only bridge and there I was in a part of town that had some really beautiful houses. I would love to own a place like this, they are so gorgeous. Pretty wrought iron gates, ivy and lots of windows.

A secret little window in the middle of the stone wall. :)

From there I walked about another 1/2 mile and found the market. Oh glorious salads! I bought some fruit, salad, jam (they only seem to have apricot or chocolate spread for toast), yogurt and nutella! This jar was huge and only 3,99!

It was a little silly to purchase since now I'm lugging around a glass jar of chocolate but it's tasty and good to put in coffee or on toast when I have withdrawals from all the chocolate I'm eating here. Everything I bought, which was enough food for 2 days cost me 14 euros (about $20USD). A few things were prepared foods but overall I consider it a successful visit!

After I returned I met my new roommate and decided to show him around since it was his first day here. This is my room:

And me in the window!

Anyways, my roomie is from California originally but has a house in Arkansas so I'm not sure why he says he's from CA. I find it funny that everyone always identifies with another place from before in their life. When I'm in Portland I tell people I'm from NY and since I'm here I tell people I'm from Oregon. I've got a lot of funny comments from people about it. Sabine said "isn't that where all the Mormons are from?" "hahah, no no, that's Utah" I said. Other people at the bar last night were making fun of us and told me all we have in Oregon is sea lions and hippies.

Anyways, showing my roommate around was kind of a failure because it was a Monday night and everything was closed. Even the delicious sausage footcart had packed up and moved on for the night. We ended up at an Irish pub and I broke my 7 month beer hiatus and had a few. We then wandered around trying to find another bar but the only places open were the places in the red light district. We just went back to the hostel and had a beer here and learned that Germans suck at pool. We cleared the table before they had even gotten one in. Hah!

Today I'm heading to Amsterdam. I'm waiting for my laundry right now but need to head over to the train station soon as my train leaves in about an hour. Having clean laundry will be wonderful!

I'll leave you with some signs of the red light district although I'm sure Amsterdam will take the cake with these pictures. As always you can click on any photo and head over to my flickr account to see all the photos I've uploaded.