Romer Platz

In my last post I mentioned our visiting two extremes on one Saturday.  First was the Ziel, a high-end shopping district where, surprisingly, the farmers market also happened to be.  And after enjoying the literal fruits of our visit there (Holunderbluten and bratwurst), we walked a few kilometers to the contrastingly beautiful historic area called Romer Platz.  This area is exactly what one thinks of when envisioning old Germany!

 The three similar buildings are the Romer, or Town Hall.
  
 And across the square, facing the Romer, is another equally beautiful row of half-timbered buildings, thus giving one the feeling of being in a fairy tale setting!  The entire area is called the Romerberg. The original buildings, destroyed during WWII, dated back to the 15th century, were restored as closely as possible. The Kaiserdom church is in the background.



This Statue of Justice (Justicia) is right in the center of it all.

And so are the "street statues" who rigidly pose in hopes of getting a Euro or two for looking "cool"!

Situated at one end of this historic square is the Old St. Nicholas Church (Alte Nikolaikirche), built in 1290, where originally the families of the city councillors were allowed to worship and have prime viewing of any festivities in the square below.

The Church of St. Bartholomaus, later dubbed the Kaiserdom or Imperial Cathedral, played quite an important role in German history.  German kings and emperors were elected at this site from 1152 onwards and crowned in this building from 1562 on as well.  Too bad you can't get a pic of the big building all at once; it's very big and squeezed in between other buildings.  But it's awesome!

St.Paul's Church, where Germany's first freely elected parliament met in 1848, was another very impressive building in this historic part of town, . 

And then as we headed towards a famous walking bridge, we passed by the Bridge of Sighs.  In Venice a similar bridge is called that because it links the courthouse to the prison; I'm not sure if this is named for the same reason here or not, but it's very similar and pretty. 

The walking bridge, Eiserner Steg, is fun to walk across and get a good view of the town and the beautiful Main River.  The bridge is totally inundated with "lovers locks," and I wonder how long they can remain before they'll have to be removed.  

This church alongside the river, St. Leonard's, is the oldest one in Frankfurt, built in 1219.

 Contrast that to the modern skyline just a few hundred yards upriver ! 

 All in all, it was a great experience, and just a couple miles from our apartment!  

Not bad for a nearby Saturday excursion!

Austria may have its Eidelweiss, but Frankfurt has its Holunderbluten!

From the beginning, Frankfurt has been both a commercial and political center of Germany.  I read that at a 14th century cathedral downtown, over 30 kings had been crowned there up until the mid-1800s.   Frankfurt is actually smaller than Salt Lake City, having about 660,000 residents.  We were told that during the day, the population increases dramatically with almost half that many people driving in to work from the outside! Since the Germans are very flexible with their working hours--putting in eight hours any time of the day--we've been told there is no late afternoon rush hour due to such staggered work schedules.

Actually, there are many "downtowns" in Frankfurt. There are numerous business centers as well as historical/tourist spots.  One Saturday afternoon Elder G and I visited one of each.  First we rode the local U-Bahn trolley downtown to a very nice shopping district.  There were quite a few high-end stores, none of which tempted me into spending my money; however, it was nice to browse in a few of them.  (Birkenstocks, by the way, are about half the price here in Germany!)  In the middle of this particular shopping area a Farmers Market is held every Saturday during the summer months.



 The many covered booths were selling mostly food items--fresh vegetables,

a variety of fresh meats and cheeses, and pastries,

and bratwurst sandwiches.  The sandwiches looked rather strange as the bratwurst was 12" long

 and yet the small buns were probably less than 6" long.

All the bratwurst vendors seemed to be selling the same uniquely presented sandwich, so it must be an acceptable thing to have the filling be twice the size of the bun!  (I wish I'd have taken a picture of the funny-looking "floppy sandwich", but I got distracted by my next discovery.)

So now, onto the purpose of this post and my new-found Farmers Market favorite:  HOLUNDERBLUTEN!!!

The most unique food item of all was Holunderbluten--an EDIBLE BOUQUET of 

ELDERBERRY BLOSSOMS, no less, 

DIPPED IN BATTER AND DEEP-FRIED!!!

It looked just like those "drizzled scones" you would see at a fair except for the number of flower stems proceeding out of the top!  Cinnamon-sugar was offered as a topping for this delectable treat!  

I just HAD to try this--regardless of what it might taste like--because it was so surprisingly different!  Luckily, it was well worth the gamble!  It tasted just like any good old scone would have without the hidden surprise inside!  It truly was a fun experience to have tried and enjoyed a fried flower bouquet!  (Disclosure:  This was not the same opinion held by Elder G, however.  He much preferred his weird, overhanging bratwurst sandwich!)

I had thought about my little town of Midway selling these treats at Swiss Days until I was told that the elderberry blossoms are in the spring, not the fall when Swiss Days is held.  Maybe we can find some other late-blooming blossoms to fry???

I've tried to include a video below.  But it keeps on playing and repeating itself.  I'm not sure if it will do the same once this post is published, but I'll give it a try.  If it presents a problem, I may have to delete it. But for now, I'll try to include a video of my new-found Farmers Market favorite.

Wilkommen in Deutschland!!!

We never thought we'd survive the flight--each of us sandwiched between two people in separate center-seat rows--but we did!  Actually, the following seven days of jet lag were much worse than the 36-hours-awake preceding that, but what else should we have expected when travelling half way around the world!

We were met by our "sponsors," Les and Dianne Feil, Public Affairs missionaries whom we replaced after receiving a week's introduction to Germany, the office, the apartment, the Church here, etc. They did a tremendous job of welcoming us and getting us started with the many facets of our new life here in Germany as well as in the setting of working in a four-story Church office building with about 50 other people, mostly seniors.

This picture was taken from our 6th floor balcony.  The four-story building on the right is the Church office building for the Europe Area.  The whole Europe Area staff, including the Area Presidency and his staff, as well as medical, mental health, humanitarian, transportation, translation, and public affairs workers are housed here.  Then the two-story building in the background is the chapel for one local German ward and the bustling International ward.  We attended the amazing International ward our first Sunday only to have to say Auf Wiedersehen to it the following week.  Since Jim and Elder Walker (He and Sister Walker are the other new couple in Public Affairs) both served their missions in Germany, both couples have been asked by the stake presidency to attend a nearby (25 minutes' drive) local German branch struggling with only 50-70 members.  We think they really just want "warm bodies."   So far both couples have been asked to be greeters!  :)

  This picture of our apartment building was taken from the front of our office building.  So you can see what a huge walk we have to take each morning and evening!  Our 800 square-foot apartment was renovated just three years ago, so it really seems nice and clean.

 This picture is taken by standing in the entrance way, showing the living room and 2nd bedroom straight ahead and the kitchen doorway on the left.

 Nice living/dining room.  There is a nice buffet on which sits the tv and dvd player, and in which are also the kitchen utensils since there's no room for them in the "one-butt" kitchen!

 We really like the master bedroom with its king-size bed and super big closet.

 The 2nd bedroom serves as our office--and eventual guest room!

 Truly a "one-butt" kitchen as was christened earlier by two couples before us.  Sink and stove on the left, no dishwasher, and a small fridge.

 The bathroom is slightly larger--maybe "1.5 butts"--and houses the combination washer/dryer.  It's quite an amazing appliance.  But you have to be careful and not use the default high-power spin, which leaves wrinkles permanently pressed!

 View from our balcony of the apartment building across the street.

Look really hard across the street, and you'll see some headstones.  The entire "greenspace"--and many, many acres beyond--is a Jewish cemetery.  It is full of numerous walking paths, which weave through various plotted-out burial gardens. This is where many of us take 30-minute walks
together during our lunch break.

Balcony view again.  This time you are able to see more of the downtown Frankfurt skyline above the buildings.  It's a beautiful sight both day and night.  Jim loves sitting out on the balcony, watching the planes fly over the skyline towards the nearby airport runway.

Both we and the Walkers really count our blessings when it comes to our apartments.  Many senior missionaries also live in this apartment building, but they all don't have newly remodeled apartments like we do.  And neither do they all live right here: There are a number of couples who either live a number of blocks away or even a 30-minute drive away.  They don't have the
convenience of a two-minute walk to work
 or the ability to take lunch in your apartment.  We are truly blessed!!!