Here's to smoking. . . Again.

So I climbed out of the subway tonight to once again be treated to the sight of a protest winding it's way along the street in front of my building. That's right, once again my neighborhood pro-smoking protesters were chanting and singing their way through Sachsenhausen. The claims on their picket signs are all about how the smoking ban has decreased their quality of life. It's amazing.

And at the end of it all, before they fully passed by my house, the protest leader called out from his megaphone (warm in the confines of a car compared to the rest of the people) that they would be back next Monday.

This may become a weekly fixture in my life. How funny given what I do for a living.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, here I am. It's a cold grey day here in Frankfurt, and rain has been chilling the city all day long. But somehow, even though I'm not with my family, I'm grateful. Grateful for fact that I got to spend a few hours with my family and friends last weekend, grateful for the people I've had the pleasure of meeting these last nine months in Germany, grateful for the opportunities I've had in this strange and wonderful experience that is my life.

I hope all of you out there have many things to be thankful for this year. And in the spirit of that, I thought I would share this lecture I came across online. It was given in September by a Computer Science professor named Randy Pausch. He is dying of liver cancer and has been given only 3 to 6 months of good health. If for some reason you haven't heard his name yet, you should have, he's been written up everywhere including The Wall Street Journal and Business Week, and even invited onto Oprah. This is his 'Last Lecture' and it is a really wonderful, inspiring and often humorous reminder of all the things we have to work for and be grateful for in our lives.

So, Happy Thanksgiving to my family and friends and everyone who happens to be a little further from home than they might like on this holiday!

Here's to smoking!

After an insanely long day/night of flying and almost a full day of work, I finally hauled my suitcases (which appear to have filled themselves with weights during the trip back) up the stairs and into my apartment. How wonderful to be home.

A little while later, battling the overwhelmingly soporific effect of my travels, Nick and I caught up over a light dinner from the Italian place downstairs, Trattoria Promis. A surprisingly good and reasonably priced place, I had a really delicious wild boar and chestnut ravioli in tomato sauce for dinner. Plus, whenever I stop by for take out after a long night at the office they ply me with prosecco or red wine while I wait for my food. Can't beat that!

Anyhow, over pasta our conversation rambled through wedding stories and pregnancy tales (sorry for the scare, Nick!) from me and snowy tales of Vienna and rowdy birthday parties from him until all of a sudden we could barely hear ourselves over a raucous chanting song that poured in from the alleyway.

Of all the things to see winding through the streets of Frankfurt at 8pm on a Monday night, the last thing I expected to see was a pro-smoking protest. They had signs and banners and even their own song! Given that my state in Germany, Hessen, recently passed a smoking ban in public places (this includes bars and restaurants), I'm curious to see how public opinion reacts as the weather gets colder. It's a new thing for this country and seeing as how Germany has one of the higher smoking rates in Europe I can't imagine people are too happy about it. Well, come to think of it, a protest on Monday night is a pretty clear sign that they're not thrilled. Then again, I think the Germans will protest just about anything right now, what with the rail strikes and such going on. Forgive the blurry nature of the photos, it was hard to get a quick shot off while they walked by in the dark.

Anyway, it was a lovely welcome home after my oh so brief sojourn in the States.

On the restaurant note, if you're interested in good Italian food in Frankfurt, I do recommend my little neighborhood joint.

Trattoria Promis
Gartenstraße 17
60594 Frankfurt am Main

Excellent Italian food for a pretty decent price.

Lost in America: Friends on the Fly

I've just arrived back in Frankfurt, what a whirlwind of a trip this has been. It's hard to believe that just 12 hours ago I was sitting in Chicago having lunch with friends. But I'm so glad that I go the chance to see at least a few people.

It was only three brief hours, but somehow I managed to cram in three people that I love. Apologies to all the people that I didn't see or didn't have a chance to call. This weekend really was a blur and it seemed like time flew by even faster than I thought it possibly could. Who knew 72 hours were so short!

On the other hand, somehow it made my coffee with Anne and lunch with Claire and Emily seem like the most normal thing in the world. Almost as if I was still living in Chicago and this was just a normal weekend. Strange how the brief nature of our visit somehow made it easier to get back on the plane to Frankfurt in the afternoon.

But to my girls, it was wonderful to see you. I miss all of you a bunch and I can't wait to see you again, hopefully sooner than 9 months!

And now back to the grind of the office and my battle with jet lag.

Happy early Thanksgiving!

Lost in America: A Wedding Reunion

So, 60 hours after arriving in Chicago I'm already on my way home from Denis and Lisa's wedding. I can't believe how fast this weekend has gone. But what a weekend it has been.

I think it must have been a little more than a year since all four of us were together, but I can't imagine a better reason to get together than to celebrate one of us getting married. So a little back story for those of you who didn't know me in college. Denis, Karl and Eric are three of my closest friends from Hamilton and it all started because of a spider infestation in my dorm sophomore year. Yes, that's right, a spider infestation. Brown recluse spiders to be exact. So when I ran into Karl, he and Eric offered me a spot on their couch while they fumigated the building. Denis was one of their roommates. The other, whom I'll call Eeyore for his inimitable ability to sigh depressingly, shall remain nameless. Well, from there on out we were pretty much inseparable and by the end of the year, Eeyore had moved into his girlfriend's room and I had a permanent place on the couch when I didn't want to talk down the hill to my room late at night. I think one of my favorite moments was the morning that Denis told his then girlfriend that he was going to have brunch with one of his "roommates" and I was the only one in the room.

So suffice to say, we've been friends a long time now and when I heard Denis was getting married there was absolutely no way that I could miss this wedding, even if it meant that I would only be Stateside for 72 hours. Before I even get to the wedding, a big shout out to my Dad for offering to drive me all the way up to Dearborn, Michigan. I know it was secretly a ploy to spend quality time with me in the car, but nevertheless, it was still a 10 hour round trip and I wasn't exactly available once we arrived. But Dad, thank you! It was fantastic to see you and chat away the hours through my travel induced haze on the way North.

Once we got there, and dinner with Karl and my Dad had been consumed, it was on to the lovely Cuban cigars that Nick donated to the cause (and were smuggled into the country by me) and after many, many hours of conversation and catching up we stumbled to bed. Ok I stumbled to bed because we'd had to finish the night off in Eric and Karl's room since the bar closed at midnight. Saturday, well Saturday was a lazy day before the wedding. Mostly we just watched the U. Michigan/Ohio State game on TV. Man, do I miss college football now that I'm in Germany. Not that I used to watch it every Saturday or anything like that, but I did like watching a few games every year.

And then all of a sudden it was time for the wedding. It was beautiful. Eric stood up as one of the groomsmen and Denis looked wonderful. It's just amazing to see these guys get married. Karl and I were talking and since neither of us wants to be the last man out, we've agreed that we should just marry each other. Seeing as we share the same birthday (I am 20 minutes older, thank you very much), it would make birthdays and anniversaries extraordinarily easy to remember. Of course then we realized that it might be kind of strange seeing as he's kind of like my brother. . . . so we gave up on that plan for now.

The reception was held at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. It was gorgeous. On my drive up to Michigan my dad had been telling me all about this museum, it strikes me as kind of being like some one's attic, a motley collection of all things Americana. As the museum itself describes the place:

"It began as one man’s vision to document the genius of ordinary people by preserving the objects they used in the course of their everyday lives. It grew to become one of the largest collections of its kind ever assembled — a remarkable destination that brings American ideas and innovations to life."

And it was a beautiful place to hold the reception. The entire museum was open to the wedding guests. So I have to admit that Eric, Karl and I (Denis got to do the meet and greet thing as groom) spent most of the wedding wandering through the museum. The collection truly is eclectic. On one side of the museum were enormous steam engine trains, every car imaginable, there was an aviation section detailing the progression of the aviation industry. Everything from the Wright brothers to Amelia Earhart and on the other side of the museum was a series of exhibits detailing different periods in American history, most notably the 50s, 60s, 70s and the newer generations X and Y.

Probably my favorite part of the museum though was the aviation section, they had a hands-on station where you could make paper airplanes and test out how far they would go. Eric's snub-nosed wonder was probably the big winner. Although Karl did have one plane that made it over 20 feet . . . . Plus they had a reproduction of the inside of a Boeing jet from the 50s (much smaller) compared to today's planes (much bigger with much higher ceilings).

And then it was time for a little blast from the past. When we were in college sophomore year "our" suite in South dorm was constantly filled with music. I think that year we had 7 or 8 guitars, a bass guitar, keyboard, trombone (Karl's), mandolin, tambourine (don't ask why, I have no idea) and a few other random instruments that I can't remember right off hand. The room was constantly filled with music. I guess that's just the way it is when three of the people are truly, legitimately musicians. Constant music, almost every hour of the day. I can't actually remember a time when someone wasn't playing some instrument. So when Eric and Denis got up on stage at the reception it felt just like old times. Of course now, we're all grown up and relatively respectable, but still. I didn't have to work hard to pull out the memory of Denis playing Eric Clapton's "Old Love" when they got up on stage.

Around midnight, it was back on the buses to head back to the hotel. Hard to believe that this is over. Denis is officially a husband. Amazing how fast time is flying by now. I guess that's just what happens as you get older.

We made it back to the hotel, after a quick photo op by the "No Hockey Sticks in the Hotel Please" sign. Both Eric and Karl are huge hockey fans and actually used to have a hockey radio show when we were in college with our friend Jack. We went out for an early morning snack at a local joint called the Ram's Horn. Oh the jokes that name spawned the rest of the night.

And now I'm off, back to Chicago again for a few more hours before I head back to Frankfurt. It was such a great time, this little trip down memory lane and the chance to catch up on our lives today. A blink and you might miss it reunion with the boys, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. Hopefully it won't be another year before we all manage to get together again.

Zürich, oh Zürich

A weekend away in one of my favorite countries, instead of lovely Lausanne, this time it was a quick trip down to Zurich for a little sightseeing and relaxation. I have only passed through Zurich twice before this trip and having only walked through the city for a few hours the first time I didn't really know what there was to see in the city itself. So it was a great chance to explore a (relatively) new place with Nick. And it was his first visit to Switzerland ever, something I actually find hard to believe given that Austria is so close, but hey, I guess there are a lot of states I haven't seen in America.

We arrived on Friday night to a lovely drizzly sky and grabbed a quick bite to eat down the street from our hotel. Saturday was kind of cold and drizzly, but we still spent the morning and afternoon wandering around the city, down the Bahnhofstrasse (one of the more famous shopping streets in Europe, very expensive) and through some of the smaller streets. There are some beautiful antique shops in Zurich. I wish we had the same kind of thing in Frankfurt. I could spend hours poking through them. Probably the shopping highlight for Nick was this tiny little scotch shop we found on one of the side streets. They had everything in there that had to do with scotch, whiskey and bourbon. Dinner, I am slightly ashamed to report, was fondue and raclette (my choice because somehow there's nothing better than melted cheese on a cold, rainy day. Totally touristy and not at all local to Zurich, but still good.

On our walk back to the hotel, and actually through much of the day, we saw scores of riot police wandering through the city in full riot gear. And across the river we heard an enormous amount of chanting and drumming. Given that Switzerland just had a rather contentious and somewhat violent election, I asked Nick if he thought it was a political rally. He figured either political rally or soccer match. Little did we know.

Sunday it was another drizzly day, not so great for sightseeing and this being Switzerland, everything was closed anyway except for the coffee shops. So after checking out of the hotel we went to find a place to camp out for a few hours and have a coffee. On our search for warmth we ran smack into the source of the drumming during the weekend, a Carnival marching band in full costume. And they were joined shortly after that by another band that played with them. When we decided to head to Zurich for the weekend, little did we know that it was the start of Carnival and all over the city there were bands wandering the streets in full on Mardi Gras style costumes playing for whomever they stumbled across.

It was unbelievable. So fantastic to see these people young, old and everything in between. I had no idea that Carnival marching bands were so big in Switzerland. Check out a little clip of our experience:



So some tips for Zurich if you so desire a visit there:

Hotels:
Hotel Rössli
Rössligasse 7
8001 Zürich
Tel: +41 44 256 70 50
Fax: +41 44 256 70 51
*Where we stayed, a very nice hotel, really central and convenient. I would definitely stay here again.

Hotel Otter
Oberdorfstrasse 7
8001 Zürich
Tel: +41 44 251 22 07
Fax: +41 44 251 22 75
*A cool looking boutique type hotel, it definitely looked like an interesting place to stay. Very funky room designs and a cool bar downstairs.

Shops and Restaurants:
Scot & Scotch
An amazing little shop that specializes in scotch and whiskeys from all over the world. I actually found small batch Kentucky bourbons here!

Sprüngli
A subsidiary of Lindt chocolates, Sprüngli has both a shop where you can purchase some really lovely chocolates and pastries as well as a cafe upstairs. The hot chocolate is fantastic as is the Gesztenye püré which is a Hungarian chestnut puree served in a small pastry with whipped cream. Very tasty.

Hiltl
The oldest vegetarian restaurant in Europe (from 1890).

Zeughauskeller
Totally touristy, but not bad food. It was a huge space, which was great when the marching bands started to pour in for dinner because they all played a set before eating.

Things to See:
Bahnhofstrasse
One of the busiest and best known shopping streets in the world, it runs from the Zürich Train Main station down to the lake. It's great for window shopping if your bank account doesn't agree to shopping on one of the most exclusive and expensive shopping streets in the world.

Also check out the Wikitravel guide to Zurich. Very helpful.