First Stop: Frankfurt

I couldn’t break the tradition of doing Thanksgiving abroad after my amazing time last year in Baden, Austria. My sister, Zaynee, has been studying abroad in Amman, Jordan since June of this year, and we decided to make a family vacation out of visiting her for Thanksgiving this year!

On Friday, November 21, I boarded my Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, Germany, where my connection to Amman was and where I would meet up with my youngest sister, Hanaa, and my parents before heading to the Middle East together. 8.5 hours of restless sleeping in my window seat, I arrived at Flughafen Frankfurt delighted to hear German being spoken around me once again. Since my family wasn’t landing for another hour and a half, I decided to venture into the small city of Frankfurt myself and explore before they came.

Fantastic architecture in Römerberg

It was simple getting the S-Bahn into Hauptwache. I made some Tajikistani friends who bought a 5 person group day ticket and included me in the group, then gave me the ticket to use. So that gave me a free pass into and out of Frankfurt!

I knew I wanted to make the most of my time in the German town, even though I only had about 5 hours, so I planned exactly what I wanted to see before I left Atlanta. My first stop out of the station at 8:30am was to head towards Römerberg, the center of the Frankfurt Altstadt where the Christkindlmarkt was being set up. I was so upset I would be missing the grand opening by 4 days. They’re my favourite. But I did get to see a lot of the stalls being built, as well as admiring the Frankfurt Rathaus or Römer (City Hall) and fantastic architecture of the Römerberg. It made me miss Vienna so much!

The Rathaus/Römer with the Christkindlmarkt stalls and tree in front

It was quite chilly, so I kept moving, towards the Eiserner Steg, or Iron Footbridge, that connected the center of Frankfurt to the Sachsenhausen, or the apple wine district. It was quite impressive, with a view of the modern skyscrapers of Downtown Frankfurt on one side and the historic cathedral pinnacles and old architecture on the other. I walked across to get the full experience!

The steps up to the Eiserner Steg 

Eiserner Steg

View of the Sechsenhausen side of Frankfurt from the Eiserner Steg

Afterwards, I visited Der Kaiserdom (The Emperor’s Cathedral) and the Frankfurt Cathedral. Neither were as impressive as Stephansdom in Vienna, or other Viennese churches, but they were quite large and warm inside!

Frankfurterdom

I scoped out a wifi signal in the next forty minutes, and managed to find out that Mom, Dad and Hanaa were in Frankfurt trying to meet me. We eventually got together and looked around for a place to eat before heading back to the airport to catch our 1pm flight to Jordan. I had passed a nice restaurant earlier that served schnitzel, and I was dying to get some, despite it being only 10:30 in the morning. We ordered the schnitzels…and were then told they weren’t serving them yet. I was heartbroken, and opted for eggs and tomatoes like the rest of the family before heading back to the Flughafen to catch our flight to Amman.

Mom, Hanaa, and I reunited in Deutschland!