How To Visit A Country In 30 Minutes Or Less

It’s a good thing I play a lot soccer and have developed an excellent cardiovascular base, because I sure needed it today.

When we last parted, Loraine and I were in Chicago, waiting for our newly re-routed flight to London and thence to Frankfurt.  We actually DID finally get on that flight, which left over an hour late because of two reasons–British Airways had so many people stuck on the plane from other airlines that they didn’t know who went where, and had to figure it out.

The other reason–President Biden flew into town, and the BA flight crew was caught on the wrong side of a road shut down for security reasons, and arrived way past their schedule.

That meant the two hour window we had for traipsing through Heathrow, going through security (because they’re special that way in London) and getting to our gate was cut down to just over half an hour.  Loraine made it through security okay, but I had to have a bottle of dental rinse (go figure) checked twice to make sure I wasn’t going to blow a plane to kingdom come.  Loraine went ahead, and that meant that I had to use my soccer conditioning skills and sprint through half of Heathrow to get to the gate and into the plane, which they were holding for me in the hopes I wouldn’t end up in jail.

Although that would have made for an interesting entry today, if you know what I mean. But anyway, if you've ever wanted to know how you can spent a mere 30 minutes in a country before you leave it...that's how.

Anyway, we’re in Frankfurt, six hours late, but we’re here.  We even had a little time to check things out, including something I find fascinating–Frankfurt was the only major German city to rebuild like an American city after World War II, and you get this juxtaposition of the very old and the very modern–

However, there are still some cool old sandstone buildings at which you can gawk–

Because of the way it’s built, though, Frankfurt is known as the Manhattan of Europe, especially true when you realize it’s the site of the Central Bank of Europe–

And, uhm, some other places, as well–

Also like Manhattan, Frankfurt sits on the banks of a river (in this case the Main), and on gorgeous Spring days (like it was today) everyone takes advantage of it–

That’s it for now.  Tonight we (finally) get some sleep and get ready to head to the first of our two destinations for this trip, Kaiserslautern.  But first, your strange piece of German absurdity for today–

Oh, those wacky, wacky Germans...

8-)