This morning we met at the Hanau Central Train Station to take the train to Frankfurt. When we got off the train at the Frankfurt Central Station we split into groups of three. Teodora, Oliva, and Nicki were in one group. Hardy, Hugh, and Niles were in another. Lastly, Zara, Callie, and I formed a group. However, that was not the end to our train-riding adventure. We had to take a tram for a few minutes before we got off and began to walk along the river Main. We took a group picture along the river with the the tall buildings of Frankfurt as a backdrop. We crossed the Eiserner Steg bridge. It had many clusters of love locks and names written in pen on the railing. Callie was surprised that people had written the names of the members of her favorite band on the bridge. Overall we seemed to like the bridge and taking nice pictures on it. We took another group picture there too.
We continued walking to the Römer. At this point Mr. Niehues stopped leading the group and wanted each group of three to lead the big group to one place. We needed to go to the Kleinmarkthalle, a market which was number 10 on the map. Mr. Niehues asked us to find it on the map first. He then chose Zara, Callie, and I to lead the group to the market. We had to go straight past Berliner Street and then make a right. Easy, right? Well that’s what we thought until we were walking for ten minutes and still hadn’t seen the building. It turns out that we had walked way too far and walked past the actual building so we had to make a turn and go back until we found the Kleinmarkthalle. When we finally got there, each group was given euros to buy breakfast. The market was quite big. It was packed with booths selling everything from meats to dried fruits. Zara, Callie, and I bought pastries and raspberries. We sat on the upper level of the market to eat.
After breakfast, we headed to the Main Tower. The building has 54 floors and two viewing decks. We all rode the tightly packed elevator to the 54th floor and climbed the stairs up to the second viewing deck. The view from the Main Tower was amazing. We could see the airport, train station, and even the skate park from Day 3. On the top of the tower we all took yet another group picture as well as many individual ones. We left the Main Tower and headed towards the Römer. Sadly, the Imperial Hall was closed today and we could not go inside to see the many portraits in the hall. We did, however, go inside the Paulskirche, the church where the German Parliament first met during the Revolution of 1848. We watched a video about the history of the church in the museum portion on the lower level and then sat on the upper level assembly room while we waited for everyone to finish watching the video. After, we went to a restaurant right across from the Römer and had lunch.
(Written by Ariel L.)
After lunch we headed to an Eis Cafe for delicious gelato! We had a combination of amazing dishes, including the very interesting ‘Spaghetti Eis’! From there we walked to the Zeil, Frankfurt’s famous street full of shops. We split into groups for two hours of shopping, which I spent with Ariel and Zara. We first went into a stationary store, then watched a legendary street performer do a seemingly impossibly low limbo under a flaming stick! We walked on, visiting Primark and then entered ‘My Zeil,’ a gigantic mall situated in the middle of the Zeil. With over five floors to choose from, we spent forever browsing the macarons that Zara just had to have, Adidas sweatshirts that tempted Ariel, overpriced perfumes I simply needed to smell, and the Crocs we couldn’t leave without admiring. When we were finished there, we headed to Karstadt, another large department store on the Zeil where Ariel and Zara spent a long time debating over which was the best chocolate to purchase, before venturing upstairs to see the rest of the store. It was only as we were leaving that we found some gorgeous animal print sheet masks in the skin care aisle that called to us. Since there were only two, it was a mad dash in the last fifteen minutes to go to Primark again and find more there, but we succeeded! It’s sure to say our nights in Berlin will be crazy ones with our cat, butterfly, galaxy and narwhal print sheet masks in tow.
Around 4 o’ clock, feet aching, we took the train back to Hanau Hauptbahnhof, where we all met up with our German buddies. Ariel, Niles, and Hugh accompanied me and Paula to a nearby castle in Hanau Park, Wilhemsbad. After that we parted ways and I went on to another nearby park with my host mom and Paula to have a lovely picnic dinner by the Main river. We ate a spread of bread, cheese, sausage, cherries, veggies, and melon all while keeping a watchful eye on the curious duck who kept wandering a little too close to our blanket. We ended the day with a quick stop to Philippsruhe for me to take a picture on my outdated Polaroid Spectra AF, and then went home.
(Written by Callie M.)
Eiserner Steg (Iron Bridge), Frankfurt
Top of the Main Tower, Frankfurt
Top of the Main Tower, Frankfurt