August 5

This morning I freaked out a little bit because I had forgotten what time I was supposed to meet downstairs - 7:15 or 8:15 (that shot of ouzo was probably a bad idea). Not wanting to be that late person, I got up early and got downstairs, checked out, had breakfast, and then hung out for an hour because, of course, we didn’t have to be downstairs until 8:15. Go figure.

We did have a meeting before leaving Hamburg this morning at the University of Hamburg. The presenter was one of the most excited men I have met on this trip! He seemed genuinely pleased to meet with us, and told us of his wish to join the U.S.’s National Council for the Social Studies. He was funny and easy to talk to concerning issues of teacher education. He then took us on a short walking tour of the campus, and we were able to view a memorial to a Jewish synagogue that was destroyed on Hitler’s Kristallnacht. Next door to the memorial was a Jewish school, and lest you think that any Jews that the Jews faced during the time of Hitler have disappeared, think again. There are still right-wing extremist groups out there (Neo Nazis, as an example) who are still bent on hurting the Jews, and you could see how seriously Germany and the city of Hamburg is taking this by the security measures that were in place around the school. There was a police stand, guards, fences, and security lights and cameras. Very sad to see, and very sobering.

We had just enough time to get back to the hotel area and grab lunch/snacks for the train, as well as out luggage, and then board the train for our almost four hour ride to Frankfurt. I thought that I would get a decent nap on the train, and it turns out that I was maybe out for about 20 minutes or so. Make no mistake - I am exhausted. For whatever reason though I am having trouble sleeping. Not fun at all! We finally got to Frankfurt, and were met with a very welcome surprise - porters for our luggage! This was fantastic because it turned out that the Frankfurt train station was massive. Lugging baggage through there would have been a mess. Our hotel is right outside the station, so it is very handy for getting around. We had enough time to meet Stephan and Victor, our tour guides here, and check into the hotel before heading out to explore the city.

Our first stop was the Goethe Haus. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is the man for whome the Goethe-Institut is named, so it made perfect sense to go out to see his home. Want to know who Goethe is? Think of him as the German Shakespeare. He is Germany's most famous poet, and was also an important political official. The house was very nice, and relaxing to be able to go from room to room and see how Goethe would have lived. We next went to the Roemerburg Old Town Square, which one of the guides called Disneyland Germany because all of the "original" looking buildings were actually built way back in the 1980's. It was still cute! We saw the oldest remaining standing building in Frankfurt, visited the Nikolaikirche (another one!) and had a private organ recital of works by Bach (very very very cool). I also was excited to see some old ROman bath ruins that were unearthed when Frankfurt started to dig out another tunnel for the subway. We ended our tour at the Kaiserdom, Frankfurt's cathedral, which was a beautiful building of red sandstone.

By this point, we were all getting hungry again, so it was off to dinner - this time at a Japanese restaurant! While I am enjoying the international food, I do hope that we get back to eating German food again soon. I am pretty certain that will happen tomorrow!

Goodnight for now!