2012_07_20 Alexa reported on Strasbourg and Frankfurt
Couchsurfing ends with wonderful friends and experiences. But it can begin with terror and despair when you have trouble finding your host!
In Strasbourg I headed for McDonalds, my least favorite location but usually has free Internet access. I had too many acceptances in Couchsurfing and then was changing arrival dates and scrounging to find one available. I bought a 24-hour trampass and headed to the end of the line, borrowed a cellphone from a kind stranger, and learned that one possibility was already booked so headed to another one, at least I had the directions. It was near Zurich Platz on a little street no one ever heard of. Strasbourg is like Amsterdam, ringed with rivers, and I saw and photographed a giant rat or otter scratching away by the water. I ate a student-priced meal and finally found the street, rang the bell, heaved my luggage up 3 flights and there was psychotherapist Valerie! In a beautiful old apartment with many rooms, one son at home named Aime, an acting sutdent, and her Álsatician friend Maurice (the name a cursed tribute to Chevalier), who answers addiction hotlines at night.
The next day I headed for the great Strasbourg cathedral, the tourist information office, and bought a pass to numerous museums and again went crazy with the camera. I had a Pakistani lunch and took a late afternoon boat cruise around the old town, even going through locks, and enjoyed one of the museums of the Rohan Palace. The bishops lived like kings, in fact Napoleon slept there. Valerie showed me little gardens she tends in her neighborhood and eventually the big one out in the country where Maurice's pickles had turned to cucumbers. Also the baby pigeon living on her balcony; nobody likes pigeons but she hadn`t the heart to dispose of the eggs. Another day she lent me a bicycle and with it I took a walking tour with headphones to the French quarter (famous for the French disease!) and caught a bride posing on one of the many bridges.
I had seen the European community buildings on the boat tour. I cycled to the modern art museum, and returned to the cathedral for a light and sound show, inferior to Nancy`s but I enjoyed the Stravinski, and the Bastille Day fireworks in the distance.
I grew very close to Valerie right away and she and Maurice even managed to sit through the trailer of my sister´s film, The Other House. Valerie grew up in Morocco and we enjoyed some packaged harira soup. Europeans who speak English are utterly charming because they have English accents. It`is always a relief not to have to struggle on in French.
From Strasbourg I had a train ticket to Frankfurt. Somehow my host of 60, a Pole named Chris, met my train twice but at the time I was leaving not arriving! He had given me good directions on the strassenbahn but then again he lived on a tiny street no one had heard of. I had his number but dialed the German code he included and it did not work. It began to rain and I was headed for a highway, recalling misery in Frankfurt thirty years past. But eventually someone knew of his street and I dragged myself with trepidation to his floor. There was Chris and Magda, a young woman I assumed to be his daughter, but was his girl friend, and they forgave me. They brought out a bakery cake and I could relax! Chris is unemployed and speaks some English and lots of German and the TV was always running. His neighborhood is full of wild rabbits. He has all kinds of computer devices and sells things on eBay and had researched where my old house was (US Army in the 50s) and I began to enjoy Frankfurt.
First I bought my all night bus ticket to Copenhagen a few nights hence, and Chris gallantly drove me to the Hauptbahnhof and waited with me for the after midnight bus. On his advice I visited the Hauptwache, got a Frankfurt tourist card with free transport and reduced museum prices. I found the iconic row of old pointed houses and ran from museum to museum, architecture, Frankfurt history, fine arts...and watched rowers on the Main river before visiting the old part of Sachsenhausen. On the streetcar heading back my last evening I caught sight of Occupy Frankfurt at the Willy Brandt Platz, quite a thrill. I didn't get to the Stuwelpeter Museum (Rocking Phillip) or Palmengarten - I think I must return everywhere I've been! Also thrilling was a nostalgic visit to our home of long ago on Frauensteinstrasse. Thirty years ago I was too shy to ring the bell - known then as Pension Stella. This time I did. The house was no longer gray but yellow and every room had been redone but the sweet lady of the house, daughter-in-law of the Pension Stella people, let me in for pictures. You can´t go home again, yet I keep trying to do it! Then I walked around the beautiful neighborhood, found what I thought was my girlfriend´s old house, and marvelled I had ever lived in such a lovely neighborhood. I shopped at my favorite supermarket Aldi´s to go to costly Scandinavia with plenty of provisions. Chris tends to stay up all night on the computer and was already expecting Russian girls volunteering in Germany to take my place. I'm amazed he continues, since a Chinese girl dropped in and stayed for 9 months, not even helping around the house!
Next chapter, DENMARK!
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ALexa
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