Our week in Europe (part IV: in Frankfurt with Jenny and Leo)

Finally, the last of our posts regarding our trip to Europe. We took the train to Frankfurt a day before we had to fly out, so that we could visit with Jenny and Leo briefly before leaving. Lucky for us, Jenny's sister Nicole was visiting as well from her home in Bremen, so we were able to meet her as well. Jenny and Leo had only moved into their apartment the weekend before, so there was still some unpacking to do. In fact, Jenny's things which she shipped from Vancouver still hadn't arrived, so even more unpacking was to come. Here's a picture of their new apartment though, which was huge and beautiful.

That afternoon Leo was helping his friend move (they were formerly roommates), so the four of us headed downtown to see some of the sights. Here's a picture of us a big square surrounded by historic buildings on all sides. It's quite a popular tourist location as well, and Jenny and her sister wanted to be sure that we got some idea of what Frankfurt looked like before we settled down to eat.

We ate at a nice restaurant quite close to the square, with tasty food. In fact here you can see the menu board, next to a kiddie table complete with ashtray. They sure do love smoking there!
On Saturday night Jenny and Leo cooked us a wonderful traditional meal from their region. It was a dish prepared by a famous butcher either in or near where they grew up, pig's stomach stuffed with something like sausage filling. It's already cooked, but then it's sliced and pan-fried before being served. We also had mashed potatoes and sauerkraut with grapes, and some plum cake made by Jenny's grandmother. Here you can see Jeremi and Leo hard at work in the kitchen.
The next day we went on a trip a bit out of town, as Leo had borrowed his friend's car for the day. We went out to Goetheturm, a big wooden tower on the edge of the city. It wasn't actually built by Goethe, but it is dedicated to him. We all climbed up the many steps of the tower, including poor pregnant Jenny, and we were rewarded by a wonderful view of the city from a distance. Of course we neglected to actually take any pictures while we were up there, or even any pictures of the tower, but I'll include one I nabbed from another website:


We then ate at a restaurant at the foot of the tower, before heading on to the airport. Jeremi took some pictures of the food, so that you could see what you'll be eating when you come to visit us. The first is Leo's dish of white sausage (weisswurst), sweet mustard, and a pretzel.

The next is mine, which was a lovely green sauce, made from quark (a soft unripened cheese) with a variety of herbs, served with boiled beef and broccoli. I don't really get what was going on with the boiled beef, but the sauce was delicious. There were also some boiled potatoes served on the side. Jenny had the same thing, but with hard boiled eggs in place of the meat. All of us but Jenny were drinking a kind of apple cider that is very popular at this time of the year there. There was even a special streetcar going around downtown where they were serving the cider to the passengers. You can sort of see the ridges on the glass in this picture. Leo said that these ridges are there so that you can still grip the glass when your fingers are covered in pork fat from the food traditionally served with the cider.



And finally, here is Jeremi's dish. It is yet another sausage platter, veal sausage this time I believe. It did come with some lovely seedy bread.