Ein Prosit! From Mannheim

Monika, whom I am traveling with, was born here in Mannheim and speaks German fluently. I speak it ... Nicht so gut. It has been almost 40 years since I was stationed in Wiesbaden and almost that long since I took German at Shasta College with Monika's husband. He could not travel with her this trip and recommended I go with her. My wife, whom I met in Germany, asked, "You aren't packed yet?" Und so, hier bin ich. (Here I am).

First things first. I would not recommend flying Condor Airlines. It's almost like they wanted to add three or four more rows to the plane so they could squeeze more people in, and then the owner of the airline asked them add three or four more rows on top of that. I have never been so cramped in a seat. God forbid we dropped something and had to pick it up. A ridiculous airline, especially for an international flight. I am already dreading the flight home. Business class here I come.

Friday 20 April

We arrived in Frankfurt on time at 1:30 PM local time and everything went like clockwork thereafter. This is Germany after all. The Germans are nothing if not on-time. From Fankfurt to our apartment in Mannheim, everything went splendidly, the high-speed train, the taxi from the Hauptbahnhof (train station), to the apartment. Angelika met us with our keys and stayed to explain everything to us. Very nice. A bottle of wine and water waiting. A very clean apartment. I found it on AirBnB and it is lovely. 

Our first evening here, we walked to a grocery store to get some essentials, and then took the long way back to the apartment. This will be a beatiful city to explore with the Rhein and Neckar rivers nearby. Monika was sharing some old photos with me and I was nodding off after the long, long day. I went to bed at 8:00 PM waking at midnight. I was awake for a few hours until 3:00 AM, then slept until 6:30 AM. Yea! No jet-lag for me this trip. Photos of Mannheim will come later in my next blog post.