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Welcome to my Blog! I hope you enjoy reading about what I am up to!! =D

August 29, 2010

Frankfurt, Germany...Continued!

8/28/10

So today...we thought it might be neat to climb to the tallest (or almost the tallest) building in Frankfurt, and check out the city for a higher stand point... And thats exactly what we did! It was called the Main Tower and it was very similar to the "formerly known" Sears tower in Chicago..However it wasn't as tall. It is always crazy how much more you can see when you are 200 meters in the air in comparison to 2..! All I can say is thank goodness i'm not afraid of heights.







We then went back to the Museumsuferfest along the river again. I had my first Applesauce flavored Crepe! It was delicious. I can tell that this abroad experience is going to have many firsts... I suppose I can get that list started now!


My first time I have ever eaten a Crepe.
My first time eating a purely German Bratwurst.


My first time I have ever took a shower while kneeling. (Dominiques shower head is at my waist ~ strange)
My first time to experience bottled water that is carbonated.. YUCK (very comparable to fountain pop without the syrup)
My first time to have ridden a Mercedes-Benz taxi
My first time to have seen/used a toilet in which the hole is in the front of the bowl rather than the back! haha!
My first time to have written a blog.
My first time to have been out of the country.
My first time to have seen a kitchen that is probably the size of my closet.
My first time to have used a subway.
My first time I have ever been to a completely German mass.
AND my first time I have ever seen a Porta-building that contained Urinals! LOVED IT! haha! Dominiques mom calls these the "Piss Pots!" Oh it was hilarious! She is awesome!



I guess that is all i can think of right now...But my list of "firsts" will continue! =D

While we were at the festival, it started to rain. ugh... I am sure glad I brought a raincoat!  So we left and just spent the rest of the afternoon in the apartment we are staying at.

That evening, a few of Dominiques friends all came over, and we had a little party before heading to another club. It was quite the party, songs like "The titanic theme song" and "Yesterday by the Beatles" were sung, and that was just the beginning of it!
The club we went to was called the cocoon club. The inner walls of the dance floor were seriously shaped like a cocoon, with little indents in them in which you could sit. Kinda crazy! House/Techno/Whatever you want to call the music we were dancing to was an interesting experience. I felt like I was just doing the same type of dance the whole time! step tap..step tap..step tap... it was fun though.



The night was then over!

8/29/10

Today was a very low key day.

One of the highlights was this AMAZING ice-cream parlor which was absolutely brilliant. From the light fixtures-pictures below, to the actual ice-cream...Lets just say I was impressed!



To kill some time before going to church (YES MOM! I am going to church!) we decided to again go to the Festival and check out what music events were playing today. I was very impressed with one band in particular that were playing the blues brothers theme song! It was great.

The church we went to was called the Frankfurt Dom (The greatest church here in Frankfurt) It is here that I discovered that it is incredibly hard to take pictures of churches and try to capture the full effect.


One picture I needed to take though, was one of the organ! The pipes were incredibly massive in person...Pointing up, pointing down, pointing sideways, and pointing out towards the inner part of the church..crazy!


Even though I couldn't understand anything, it was a good experience. I even thought it might be good to give a little donation to the collection...Hmmm, I wonder what the church is going to do with 2 american dollars?? haha!

Tonight..! FIREWORKS! For the festival, Frankfurt always puts on a fireworks display..Right now its not looking to promising because its raining, but hopefully it will clear up in about a half hour!



Hope you are enjoying my blog!

Oh..and one more thing!
For your enjoyment, I found my entire family...ANT STYLE! =D =D










-Matthew

August 28, 2010

FIRST STOP..Frankfurt, Germany

Hey Everyone!

So...the #1 thing people told me to do while abroad was...to keep a journal! I think the best way for me to do that is to write a blog, so here it is! =D
For those of you that didn't know, I took off on Wednesday August 25th from the Minneapolis, MN airport and arrived safely in Frankfurt, Germany after an exhausting flight on Iceland Air. Because I was an orientation leader at St. Johns University before actually needing to be in London, I had a week in there where I didn't have a place to stay....making going to Frankfurt a good excuse to occupy that week!




It was quite the flight: touch screens behind every seat that you could use to watch movies-listen to music-track the flight statistics-watch tv-etc, a complimentary drink, a chair right next to me which was vacant -YAYA!, and a stewardess who hated me! I was kinda mad though that the meal wasn’t complimentary…It would have cost me around 10 euros for a decent meal, so I opted to wait until I got to Germany. (Poor college kid being cheap you know =D)

When we arrived in Germany, my personal tour guide and host picked me up. Just kidding - She isn’t my personal tour guide but she does know a lot! Dominique (foreign exchange student we hosted) and her mother were there to take us to their home. A tiny car, four suitcases, three carry-on’s, four people, the busy city of Frankfurt, and an ½ hour later ----we were there! CRAZY
Even though myself and guy I am traveling with (Josh) were tired, we figured it might be a good to get a head start on the city because there was/is so much to see and do, but so little time.

8/26/10 –
So, the first day we went to an INCREDIBLY designed mall with this gigantic window that stretches through the middle of it! It was called MyZeil and it was AMAZING! It truly makes me want to become an architect. I have way too many interests… Then we went to the Alte Oper which in English means Old Opera House.. We didn’t see anything there, but the building itself was really neat. 


 


One thing about Germany is that there are quite a few sweet little shops around so we went down the Zeil (shopping street) just to check a few out. A quick note about that is that I don't think that I could survive in Frankfurt....financially. I swear that around every corner there is a a shop containing sweet looking desserts and other food items. YUMMY. We also went to a major “Touristy type” place called Roemer. It was a pretty sweet “oldish” type town. Kinda hard to explain, but cool at the same time. We opted to buy some icecream there needless to say, it was MAGNIFICENT! 




Next we went to the popular Eisener Steg (bridge) which was really neat to see. In NE you don’t see too many pedestrian bridges of this size. Kinda crazy! At this time in Germany there is a festival going on called the Museumsuferfest which is located along both sides of the river the bridge crosses.  I am willing to bet that there are around 200+ little “tent” shops set up for this event. 




Oh, and I forgot to mention that we were at the top of Zeilgalerie (on the top of the mall)…This was a great picture place as we could see a portion of city at a single location. WOW! 




Lastly Dominique, Josh, and I went to the popular Applewine Bar and met up with a friend (Sophie). Applewine is a pretty popular type of drink in Germany and Dominique thought it would be good to try. Let me just tell you, it was pretty good!

8/27/10 –
The next day we went back to the Festival (Museumsuferfest) along the river. We did a more detailed walk through and some of the stuff they had available was pretty unique. The part of myself that wanted to buy anything and everything sure kicked in, but then I realized that I am just a poor college kid with a 65 pound suitcase that I ALMOST got charged an extra 110 US dollars for on the flight over! Next we went to the Chinesischer Garten (Chinese Garden) and the Bethmannpark. 




One thing that I kinda have a love for is sweet water fountains…and this park that we went to had 6 of them and I loved it!




We spent the evening going to one of Dominique’s friends (Almuth) house, met a few people and played a few card games before going clubbing at the Kingka Club. I’ll admit, I was a little nervous about going, however, once we got there it was great! The dancing was great, the people were great, the music was great...and the bathrooms were UNBELIEVABLE GREAT! If, for some odd reason I needed to eat something off of a bathroom floor, I would totally do it on that one!! haha! 




Also, we took a taxi-cab over to the club and that was great too! It was a mercedes-benz, and it was probably the nicest vehicle I have ever been in...I was very unaware that some taxi people drive the elite! I have decided that I am going to own one of those someday….even if I'm 70 years old =D


This is me...exhausted after a long night!! 




And don't worry mom...I'm being good!

Welp…
I hope you enjoyed reading my first (of many) blog posts.

Until next time,

Matthew (OUT)!