Less than one hour after checking into the Frankfurt Intercontinental hotel, we had to assemble in the lobby to go to dinner as a group. This was the first meal all together since our send-off banquet in Seattle. The dinner also marked the addition of Pamela, Bill's wife, to the group. For the first week, Bill was accompanied by Petra, his 13 year old, smart charming daughter. The second week, he was solo. Yesterday, at the Frankfurt airport, Pamela appeared, to join us for the rest of the way. It was great to see her happy face as we exited the immigration hall. Pamela was at the send-off in Seattle but stayed back. She is the operations and execution queen.
Before leaving for our dinner, we had a brief meeting so that Bill could outline the next leg: Nordic Europe.
We have from the moment we finish our banquet on Tuesday evening, May 4 until 11 AM Thursday, May 7 to meet in Copenhagen, with 99 possible scavenges along the way. They range in point value from 20 (have a cold drink from Ole Skram in Copenhagen) to 500 (take the ferry from Oslo to the Viking Museum and you must take the train to Oslo or back to Copenhagen - no planes). Bill collected the books so we could enjoy dinner. He has assembled a great group of travelers and we have fun together. Although we are competing, we are cooperating and we enjoy each others' company.
Dinner was at Paul Allner (sp?) We ordered beers (Bart and Trevor had two REALLY big beers and the other Alex had TWO of the REALLY big ones.
The food was sausages, sauerkraut, weiner schnitzel - typical German food and quite tasty when accompanied by beer.
Before leaving for dinner, Alex had posted his status on Facebook, saying he was going to Copenhagen. Moments later, he heard from his host mother of the family that lives in the Copenhagen suburb where he stayed junior year in college. It seems that our schedule may work out so we can meet the family in Nyhavn (the colorful harbor area) for a drink later tomorrow night (also, conveniently, a 25 point scavenge).
After dinner, Alex and I (who are VERY excited about these next few days) jumped into a taxi and went right to the train station. Our quick perusal of the scavenges and point values suggested to us that we should leave Frankfurt ASAP, head to Hamburg, Copenhagen, Sweden and back to Copenhagen. We mapped out the start of our schedule and decided we would take the 6:58 AM train from Frankfurt to Hamburg. But first, we needed to do the mandatories in Frankfurt. There were six choices for the mandatory food challenges and we chose "Enjoy a Frankurt cliche, eat a Frankfurter in Frankfurt". Even though we had just finished dinner, Alex was up to the task of eating just a bit more. Easy to find in the train station. Check. Done. The other mandatory in Frankfurt required locating and visiting the Fountain of Justice. We planned to take a taxi, have him wait while we snapped a photo and then contine on to our hotel.
At that point, we didn't have any information on Frankfurt, so we asked the train schedule guy where the Fountain of Justice is located. He wrote out the name of the place where she is located. Armed with the paper saying "Romerberg", we showed the taxi driver and made our intentended stop known. He got it. (Unfortunately, no German-speakers on this Germanically-named team). When he pulled up to the statue, we did a double-take. The mandatory Fountain of Justice scavenge is right in front of the restaurant where we had dinner less than one hour earlier!! Very clever, Bill! The taxi returned us to our hotel. We settled the account so that we could bolt in the morning without checking out; and I asked for a map.Bill appeared at our side, asking if we were checking out of the hotel already. He stood with us as I had asked the desk clerk to confirm the walking directions to the train station, which Alex already knew, but I confirm as a habit. Bill informed us "That's cheating". What a downer after all we had just accomplished it's all in his hands.