My plan to sleep for the bulk of the plane ride from Houston to Paris was pretty unsuccessful. I took a drammamine, which usually knocks me out into a swift sleep, but for some reason I just couldn't get an extended sleep session in. About 3 movies later I had about 3 hours off and on of uncomfortable airplane sleep.
Even more unplanned was that our flight was rather late arriving in Paris and didn't land until 9:20 (20 minutes late), when our connecting flight to Frankfurt was scheduled to board. We rushed through the Charles de Gaulle airport and finally made it to our gate to head to Frankfurt around 9:50...when the flight was scheduled to take off! Yikes! Lucky for us, the plane we were taking from Paris to Frankfurt was coming from Munich and was very late because of the snow in Munich so our flight did not leave until about 10:30. We had enough time to get through the passport and security checkpoints, use the restroom, and buy a quick sandwich to share. The whole adventure of trying to get to our gate was quite hectic. There were many people that were running extremely late for their flights and running through the airport to catch their flights.
When we got on the small plane to fly from Paris to Frankfurt I made use of my window seat and fell asleep for the entire flight. I'm pretty sure I was asleep before we even left the ground! When our plane arrived in Frankfurt, we walked off the plane and straight outside to a shuttle bus. Needless, to say, the intial gusts of wind as we exited the plane were shocking! It was probably between 25-30 degrees F, definitely much colder than the 70 degree F weather we've been having down in Texas!
Levi's uncle, Roland, lives in Frankfurt and after a neat skype-call had told us that he might be able to pick us up from the airport upon our arrival, if not, we were to take a taxi to his home. We exchanged our USD to euros, but were not able to find Uncle Roland so we opted to take a taxi to Uncle Roland's house. The taxi (a Mercedes Benz taxi at that) dropped us off at Uncle Roland's house where Roland lives with his adopted mother, Wally. Apparently in the confusion of our flight arrival, Roland had left the house and was at the Frankfurt airport, while Levi and I stood outside in the cold at his home.
We buzzed the doorbell and Wally suddenly shouted from one of the upstairs balconies. Because Wally speaks no English and did not initally spot our luggage in hand, she waved her hands and directed for us to leave. Turns out she thought we were solicters/salespeople trying to enter the home. We finally stepped outside the gate onto the sidewalk infront of the house and had just about resigned to having to wait outside in the cold until Uncle Roland would return home. Luckily Uncle Roland had given up waiting for us at the airport and called Wally from his cell phone (that Levi and I did not have the number to) to tell her that he was unable to meet us and that perhaps we were on our way to the house. She then told him that there were in fact "two persons" that were hanging around outside the house and she finally realized it was Levi and me!
It has been 12 years since Levi has been to Frankfurt to visit Uncle Roland and Wally so it's understandable that she didn't recognize him. Apparently she said we should have yelled that we were from America and that would have been a dead giveaway.
Once we were inside Wally fixed us some coffee to warm up and wait for Uncle Roland. Wally is 90 years old, but is still able to move freely around the home and up and down the stairs of the 4 floor home.
The bottom floor of the home is the basement, where the laundry room etc. are. The second floor is where Uncle Roland has a bedroom, bath, kitchen, living and dining rooms. The third floor is where Wally has her own bedroom, bath, kitchen, living and dining rooms and the fourth floor, where Levi and I are staying has a bedroom, bath, living room and bar area, and an office where Wally's husband used to work (Wally's husband had founded the first television station in Frankfurt.) Each of the top 3 floors also has it's own balcony overlooking the neighborhood.
After coffee and chit-chat, Levi and I retreated upstairs to take a "quick nap" to cure our jetlag. Unfortunately that turned into a 3 hours nap and when we woke up, it was 5pm and pitch dark outside! Not to mention nearly 6 inches of snow had falled outside! Uncle Roland finished up dinner and Levi and I bundled up and headed outside to enjoy the winter snow. For us it was beautiful and exciting, but Uncle Roland was rather disinterested having been used to heavy snowfall during the winter. "We hate it!" he said. Turns out he is much more of "beach-man" enjoying warm weather and thus having visited Miami, FL, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Thailand, and Kenya (7 times!).
Dinner was tomato soup (to warm up after our frolick in the snow), a "winter salad" ("You don't have these in the States" Roland said), and an English pochette made of buttery flaky dough and stuffed with seasoned pork. Delicious and homemade and Uncle Roland encouraged us to eat and drink more and more (much like Filipino culture), but six glasses of a wonderful white wine riesling later Levi and I were feeling the jet lag catch back up to us again. Despite being around 70 yrs old and 90 yrs old, Uncle Roland and Wally were drinking and chatting us under the table- "You're tired? It's very early...What time shall we wake? Not too early...We sleep late..." My image of senior citizens eating dinner at 4:30pm and waking up at 5:30am is completely ruined.
There's one station on the tv upstairs in uncle Roland's house that is in English (CNN) so Levi and I are catching up some news before bed before our sightseeing tour begins in Frankfurt tomorrow!
Until then
Auf Wiedersehen!
-Pristine
They sound awesome, and it sounds like a great place to stay.
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