Germany

22 December 2017 My German update will be coming very soon, however in the meantime I wanted to share with you an odd thing for those visiting Germany. On our car drive from Frankfurt to Rothenburg (via Heidelberg) we stopped at a roadside services thing off the highway, primarily to allow me the opportunity to relieve myself. So I stepped into the toiletten and was greeted by a late middle-aged, balding man, wearing a white lab coat, and sitting on a stool in front of a small table. Most importantly, he was positioned strategically between the entrance to the herren (male) and damen (female) toilets, focussing a great deal on a small white saucer which had a one Euro coin sitting in the middle of it. He smiled broadly at me and said “Hallo”. So, I reached into my pocket where I thankfully found a Euro coin and placed it on the dish. Big smile. Danke schön.

23 December 2017 For our flight from New York to Frankfurt, we had the very pleasant surprise of being upgraded to Premium Economy. Thank you Lufthansa — very nice! That made everything much more comfortable and allowed me to at least get a few hours sleep. Unfortunately Nicole and Katelyn weren’t able to sleep though. We arrived at our hotel at around 7:00am, but amazingly were able to check in to our room at that time. Thank you Citadines Frankfurt! We decided to sleep until around 11:00 before setting off to explore.