hallo from deutchland! i arrived in frankfurt friday morning at 7:20, or 12:20 am texas time and met up with my lovely german friend stefanie. i was already exhausted from the flight and time difference, but riding on adrenaline and ready for my savvy tour guide to show my the city. i rode my first european taxi to avoid lugging my 20 pound backpack and two 50 pound suitcases around and dropped them off at to her friend michael's car for the day and took off to enjoy the area! we ate breakfast at one the hundreds of little sidewalk cafes, where i gobbled down a pflaumenkuchen plum tart and a quarkini sugar puffball. we wandered around a playground, the main river, a romanesque church and town hall, and then made our way to the johann wolfgang goethe house and museum. goethe is one of germany's most famous authors and poets, and incidentally the 28th was his birthday so entrance to the home he grew up in and an art gallery was free. next, we headed to the jewish museum and checked out artififacts from centuries of jewish life in frankfurt. stef had reserved a time for us to check out the frankfurt stock exchange, which is the largest in germany and fourth largest in the world. after twenty minutes of watching people just type on their computers and drink pelligrino, we met up with her boyfriend gideon for lunch and the biggest pizza i've ever eaten. we took the metro to palmengarten, a gigantic botanical garden on the edge of the city. i took a lifesaving nap on a bench and stef's lap facing a fountain, then explored its 21 acres. we met up with michael, who was sweet enough to drive us (in his sleek bmw convertible) to her teeny hometown of weiler an hour away. sitting about a mile above sea level, this town of 2,000 is where stef and her parents live in an adorably quaint home. after being shown the house and setting up camp in my own room with a terrace overlooking the green mountains, her family and i sat down to a legitimately german dinner. i had a glass of german beer with lemon juice, squished meatballs, yard grown cherry tomatoes and rice with a wine and mushroom sauce. her dad speaks no english, and her mom speaks some. after filling up, we went to nearby bingen's anuanl wine festival. all the small german towns are celebrating grape harvests this time of year, and everyone gets together for a good time. i met tons of her friends, some of whom tried out their english, bought an engraved 2 euro wine glass and tried some local wine. we came back and crashed after i had been up without more than a coupel hours of sleep in about 40 hours.