Alexander Family's Big Adventure: Frankfurt with a friend and family

I was so blessed by my friend Heather's visit! She and her mom stopped in Frankfurt to see me before heading over to Krakow for a longer stay.

Why don't YOU do that?!

Seriously, my visit with Heather was absolutely therapeutic. I needed to spend some time with a loved one in addition to my immediate family!

Heather found an app (was it, "Visit a City"?) that put together a walking tour with her input, and we saw so much in Frankfurt! We saw multiple churches and a couple museums. I especially enjoyed the Schirn Museum, which has an exhibit based on dioramas. I've never seen anything like it before!

I learned how to use public transportation to and from my house this weekend. Finally! And how easy it is! It is so easy, in fact, that I think we're all going to go up to Frankfurt this weekend for a little trip. The kids will love the train, and I think everyone will love getting out for a bit. The train station is only a 7 minute walk from my house! Fortunately I had guessed correctly that an all day ticket was literally good all day and would count for a round-trip ticket. On my first day, nobody checked, but on my second day, the polizei came around, and my ticket was good. Somebody else's wasn't, and the polizei asked for his passport, which he didn't have. So then he took him to the back. Uh oh. (He came back to his seat after a little while. It really wasn't too dramatic, thankfully.)

I am getting into this business of living in Europe! I still have to decide where we'll go over the Christmas holiday. My mom is coming to visit (woo hoo!!), and I'm going to show her as much of Germany as I can, but I think we'll still have time to go somewhere as a family. I'm thinking of going north to Berlin, but I might be intimidated by the weather. I still have time to decide!

And I can't wait to visit Bavaria (today)! I think I am one or two weeks late with the leaves, but that's okay. I'm excited to see the mountains again. This time with a digital camera! It could be great!

After my visit with Heather, I actually did as I planned and took the family to Frankfurt. I'll tell you, I can't get us out the door at a decent hour. Today my goal is noon, but with Frankfurt, it was 10:00. Guess what time we left? 2:00. I know how we are, though, and planned only to go to the Schirn Museum and have a nice dinner. We did both, stopping at a Chinese buffet on the way back to the train station. I also put on the baby backpack for the first time since I discovered my herniated disc in 2015. It went well. I had to give it to Dave quite a bit but less because of my neck and more because my core is weak and it felt like my lungs were being squished. But I'm happy I handled it as much as I did.

Oh, and on another note, I submitted my claim for my household goods. Please pray that it gets resolved smoothly and to our satisfaction. We are just too busy to have to spend too much time fighting this.

And now I share the pictures: