Frankfurt to Cologne: 320€ & 3km

We made it. To our beautiful AirBnb in Cologne.

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I’m sitting atop the private rooftop balcony writing this with blue skies, puffy white clouds and sun that doesn’t make me run inside. But it’s a miracle we’re here.

  • We arrived at the Kuwait airport 2.5 hours before our flight, said our (temporary) goodbyes to Saud and sailed through security.
  • We hung out in the airport lounge (only booze would make it better).
  • We slept almost the entire flight on a new plane with gorgeous personal entertainment screens BUT we had to walk through first and business classes to see the luxury we were missing. That cuts deep.
  • We said our see-you-laters to many more friends.
  • Our luggage was waiting for us on the belt BUT one of our wheels was missing.
  • We weren’t able to find a place to buy a SIM card nor an ATM with euros.
  • We arrived at our train platform for Cologne early BUT we missed the train because our car was at the other end of the platform and the conductor waved us on (as we were sprinting…yes my toe is fractured) instead of waving us onto the train.
  • We were able to secure seats on the next train (an hour later) BUT had to pay more than the original price of our 1st class tickets for 2nd class tickets.
  • We made it to Cologne BUT arrived at the train station that was across the river from our AirBnB instead of across the street.
  • Maps did us wrong and we ended up walking 3km (with luggage in toe) to this beautiful apartment.
  • I realized I forgot both my running shoes (I was deciding which pair to bring home and ended up not bringing either).
  • Jeff & Abby had to carry 4 huge suitcases up lots and lots of stairs.

It’s so interesting to think about all the little what-ifs that could make life quite different. We can’t be mad at anyone that we missed the train. It sucked a whole lot. But there is no point in being angry. However – what if I had just let us continue down to the end of platform that our car ended up being at (instead of making us turn around because I was too cold)? What if we Jeff had heard me when I told him to just get on the train when the conductors held up their orange signs? What if I had grabbed a pair of running shoes when I said I was going to or Jeff had seen my shoes and thought to ask when he put the box in the extra room? Sometimes life intrigues me. And I’m not sure how to deal with all the what-ifs and could-have-beens. Except this.

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Enjoying this (Kolsch & pork) feast together in the sun on a street in Cologne in June may have made the entire ordeal worth it. When we’re all sore and exhausted tomorrow…we’ll have to think of this meal and the many more to come. Oh…and the US Men’s National Soccer game against Germany tomorrow. We’ll cheer loud but I think we deserve a win!

Our Guide: Heidelberg, Germany

Where We Stayed:
Because we had such an amazing first experience with airbnb in Athens, we tried it out again in heidelberg – we were not disappointed! Our flat was perfectly suited for our needs and only cost us ~$70 a night. You can read the review on airbnb’s website, but if you don’t want to click through just take my word for it. Or thing worth mentioning is that it was NOT near the city center, which was fine with us. We definitely felt more local where we were.

What We Ate:


Oh man, where do I start? German food is heavy and delicious. We tried two local breweries or “braueri” , Lowenbrau and Kulture. Both were excellent. We sampled the schnitzel and liver dumpling soup at Lowenbrau and split a mountainous plate of pork in mushroom sauce, asparagus and spaetzle at Kulture.

We kept things light with salads at a little cafe off of Bismarkplatz called MEDOC. They were HUGE, fresh and delicious. Anyone looking to change things up a bit away from the heavy food, I recommend it.

Our other restaurant experience that’s worth mentioned was “Schnitzelbank.” It’s a hole in the wall place off of a side street and if you’re in Heidelberg, you need to go there. It’s family style seating, which means there are a bunch of long tables and you share them with whoever is around. It amazed us how many people didn’t know this when they walked in and it was fun to watch them squirm with the discomforting idea of sitting next to someone they don’t know. Lissa and I started with snails in garlic and butter sauce then split Gorgonzola schnitzel and a plate of bratwurst, fried potatos and sauerkraut. It was all fantastic. Do yourself a favor and find this place, try the garlic schnitzel and let us know how it is. We were dying to try it but couldn’t tear away from the other two.

What We Did:

Frankfurt is a wonderful walking city, and walk we did. It was vacation and I had a cell phone, so we grabbed a few geocaches throughout town. Have I mentioned that this is the single-best vacation game ever invented? We walked up and down the Bismarkplatz, visited the Shloss, hiked all over the Philosophenweg, and stopped at cafes and bakeries in between. Honestly, you only need a day or two for Heidelberg. We stayed 3 and were lazy, relaxed and laid back about it. We loved it.

Pro Tips:
* If you fly into Frankfurt, take the Lufthansa shuttle from the airport. They’ll bring you right to the crowne plaza downtown and they’ll do it for €42 per person, round trip (€40 if you flew Lufthansa to get there). Just be sure to make a reservation!

* As soon as you get into Heidelberg, buy a Heidelberg card. It gives you entrance to a bunch of places and, most importantly, gives you free and unlimited access to public transportation. It’s totally worth it.

* if you’re looking for a prepaid SIM card, go with TMobile. I’ll save you the hassle of checking out the other places, whose prices are absurd. We paid €10 for 100MB of data, which is more than enough for 3 days, even with geocaching 😉

Want to see all our photos?

It’s good to be back

It might sound silly….but after 3.5 months of being a minority in the “eastern world,” it’s nice to be back in the west. During the last 36 hours countless people have mistaken us for Germans (including a guy who pulled off the road and asked us a question in German while I was wearing a Notre Dame hoodie). It feels good to blend in for a change!

The weather today progressively improved and now we’re back in the apartment enjoying a beautiful evening!

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We wandered to the castle today and stopped for a beer and pretzel on the way (duh!).

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The views from the castle were pretty spectacular! There were a lot of French tourists…it was fun to hear my favorite language again 🙂

Afterwards we headed to the brewery that our AirBnB host recommended (Kulterbrauerei). We started with sausage, a pretzel with amazing mustard and their house beer.

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We followed it up with the most amazing pork with mushroom sauce I’ve ever had.

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We’re pretty sure someone died while we were at Kulterbrauerei. Seriously. First our server and another woman were standing looking out the alley to the street. Then the observers grew to 5 people. We were quite curious after 10 minutes of this so Jeff went to get up and peek. Our server VERY sternly told him to sit down. But he saw a body being wheeled out on a stretcher. Too bad we don’t read German so we can’t look for the news in the paper tomorrow.

We meandered back to the tram with a pit stop at GelaTo Go. I’ve never had chocolate chili ice cream before…it was spicy enough to make me sweat a little while the ice cream made me cold. Weirdly satisfying!

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After stopping at the grocery store for dinner and breakfast provisions (hello French red wine!), we’re in for the night and are planning to get caught up on Community and Game of Thrones. Luckily it’s already 8:30pm so we’ve managed to stay awake to eat some dinner and see the sunset!

We made it!

We made it…
* through our 4th and 5th years teaching.
* through our 1st year in international educations and in kuwait (with lots of ups and downs).
* to the airport (…I started packing approximately 1.5 hours before we left).
* to Frankfurt (even though the plane a a few too many crying babies).
* to Heidelberg and our apartment (after 2 hours in the rain figuring out how to do so…we’re two for two with AirBnB, no phones and rain!).

Yesterday we relaxed a little at the apartment before heading down to Altstadt for some walking, food (read beer) and tourist info.

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Can you find the Kuwaiti dinar?!

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The weather was nothing like what the weather channel said it would be…

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But we made it work 😉

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We returned to the apartment, fell asleep on the couch at 5pm and woke up in bed at 7am this morning! Guess we needed to relax and rejuvenate a little!

After a short run this morning (outside, green, wet and gorgeous!) and some yummy breakfast, were headed to check out the castle!

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