Frankfurt and Buchenwald 11/25/07

Well, France didn't work out. Life goes on. Amanda and I decided to go to Frankfurt for a day of shopping on Friday and to Weimar on Saturday. Friday, it rained. We went anyway. And, like the mall-deprived people we have become, were completely over-stimulated by the flashing lights, pretty colors and, well, stuff. So in four hours of shopping we bought... lunch. I got a Christmas gift, and she got a pair of tennis shoes. Fairly unproductive overall. On the way back though, we made a discovery.

When my dad came over, on the way back from the airport, we took the wrong train. Well, as it turns out, we didn't. There were two trains that were connected and then broke apart at Gießen. We were just on the wrong part of the train. We were quite impressed with ourselves for finally figuring this out.

On Saturday we got up and left for Weimar at 7:43. We got to Weimar around 1:00 PM, and had lunch at Subway. Closest I've come to a real diet coke in three and a half months. I don't know how Subway managed to avoid the crap "Coca Cola Light" taste, but it was much more satisfying. The bus to Buchenwald, which was a concentration camp, only came once every two hours, so we had to wait until around 2:30 to get there. Once there, we hit the highlights, because it closes at dark. We were really lucky because it was the first clear, sunny day (freezing) day in ages, and we got to the memorial right at sunset. The memorial is the largest in Germany and was quite stunning. I'll include a link to pictures at the bottom.

Then, from 4:30 PM to midnight, we tried to get home. We took the wrong train and ended up with hour or 45 minute layovers everywhere. So we ended up traveling around 13 hours for 2 hours at the camp. I thought that it was worth it. Amanda lost her phone on the way back, but whoever found it has contacted her, so that's good. All in all, a good weekend!

Exchange rates: $1=.67 Euro, 1 Euro=$1.48.

Photos: http://rmc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011041&l=b59ec&id=81900905