Saturday, April 17th 4AM – Rise and Shine! 5 hours or sleep is all this body can handle on a granite floor. We are lookin’ and feelin’ mighty fine. So, we’re wimps and can’t do the campin’ out at the airport any longer – 26 hours of roaming the halls and guarding our bags is long enough. John got on line and found a hotel vacancy 2 km from the hotel with a shuttle service. We arrive at the Steigenberger Hotel (even sounds German, don’t you think?) at 9:30 and sit in the lobby (with soft cushioned seats) until we can get in our room at 11. It feels so good to lie down on a mattress and especially good to have a shower. It would be even nicer to have clean (or some different) clothes to put on after the shower, but we will never see these people again so what difference does it make to be on day 3 of these same clothes?
3PM – decide to take the subway to downtown Frankfort and see the sights. We ask a couple who are staying in our hotel where they are from (as they were getting on the shuttle with us to get to the subway station which is below the airport) and we end up spending the rest of the day with them. It turns out this delightful couple from Crossville (I think), Tenn. have been to Germany numerous times on business and Rebecca actually speaks German. They have no clue how glad we are to tag along with them and to learn some history about this place. We ended our time with them at a German restaurant on the square downtown sharing pig knuckle, sausages, mashed potatoes and sauerkraut . I’m going to need to find me some elastic waist pants before I make it home! Wonderful night’s sleep on a wonderful bed.