June 12

Ok, so getting to Frankfurt went well this morning.  I left a bit later than I would have liked because I learned that the automatic ticket machines do not take €50 bills, which was all I had left.  Luckily a lady showed up to work at the Bahnhof office today, and she could give me change.  I think it's a combination of talking quietly and having subpar German skills, but I find myself having to repeat things a lot.  So I got to Frankfurt right around 11:00 and headed to the Goethe house there, after getting a map from the Deutsche Bahn desk.  By the way, Frankfurt Hbf is much bigger than any of the other ones that I have been to so far.  It was crazy big for a Hudsonvillian like me.  The Goethe house was pretty cool.  It was a typical old house of a writer, but interesting nonetheless.  I think that I had everyone at the cash register and one of the guides fooled into thinking that I was a German.  I felt pretty good about that.  I can be good in certain situations (probably just in the houses of famous authors) apparently.  I held the door open for an older couple, and the lady said, "Thank you," so I said, "You are very welcome."  She then told me that my English was very good, to which I replied, "It had better be."  It turned out that they were from Illinois and visiting Germany for a bit.  After the house, I headed to the Frankfurt Zoo where I spent a couple of hours.  Student rates saved me quite a bit today, and only the zoo asked for I.D.  Apparently a Calvin card is ok here, which is wonderful.  After seeing a lot of animals, and many other empty cages, I had some wurst and gouda sandwiches then headed out.  After that it was to the Dom there, which was fantastically beautiful like the one in Mainz.  StPaulskirche was in the area as well, so I went to check that out too.  It was essentially the birthplace of German democracy, and John F. Kennedy gave an important speech there.  It had to be rebuilt after pretty heavy bombing during WWII, but it looks fantastic in its restored state.  On the way there I passed by a rally for Iranian democracy that was taking place very appropriately in Frankfurt.  After that I went to the Willi Brandt Platz which was nearby (he was a Bundeskanzler for Germany, like Angela Merkel is currently) and hung out for a bit, taking pictures of the new tall buildings in the area, then headed over a bridge on the Main River for a view of the skyline.  Frankfurt, like many German cities, had to be rebuilt after the war, so unlike less heavily bombed areas it has a pretty cool modern looking skyline.  It certainly retains a lot of charm though.  I headed to the Hauptbanhof after that, rather tired and ready to go back to Ingelheim.  I had some trouble finding a connection back to Ingelheim for some reason, so I decided to try the ICE to Mainz, just for fun (it's a bit more expensive, so I typically don't take it if I don't have to).  In Mainz I connected to Ingelheim on one of the trains that goes every hour, and arrived back with plenty of time to see the U.S.-England soccer match, and catch the end of Sam Querrey's match at the Queen's Club in England.  It was incidentally a German that he beat.  Haha!  It was also quite the match to watch versus England.  There was not as much honking of horns when we scored for some reason (England neither), so I made some noise out of my apartment window to make up for it.