Frankfurt & Capetown

After an overnight flight from Detroit,  I arrived in Frankfurt where I had about an 8 hour layover.  The flight was great – an Airbus A300 provided a smooth, comfortable flight and 1/2 an Ambien provided several hours of sleep so I arrived in Frankfurt ready to go.

I spent the morning and early afternoon walking around town which I really enjoyed.  My expectation was that Frankfurt was all business – a rather dull financial city.  I was surprised by how different the city was.  There is a great waterfront along the Main river and pedestrian zones filled with shoppers and tourists.

The weather was perfect – about 75 degrees and sunny, so I enjoyed both a breakfast and lunch sitting outside people watching.  For lunch I had a Thuringerwurst with potato salad and a beer.  Excellent.

After walking along the river, I made my way back to the train station for the 15 minute ride back to the airport.  There I met up with Meghan who had taken a later flight.  The two of us eventually boarded our flight to Cape Town.

The flight to Cape Town was about 11 hours long, and unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take up the 4 adjacent seats that I was able to on the flight to Frankfurt, so lying down wasn’t an option.  I managed to get somewhere between 3 and 5 hours of fitful sleep, which just wasn’t enough.

Arriving in Cape Town at 5 AM, we grabbed a taxi to our hotel where we were lucky to be able to crash in our room for a few hours.  We showered and were out by 11 AM.  We’ve since spent the day walking around town, down to the “waterfront” area (touristy but nowhere near as bad as Fisherman’s Wharf) where we grabbed a beer and watched several military ships coming in to port.

Now we’re just letting folks know we’ve arrived thanks to the use of an internet cafe and then we’ll head back to the hotel before heading out for dinner.

We’ve got a couple more days in Cape Town and the surrounds before heading elsewhere around the Cape Peninsula and greater Cape Town area.   Tomorrow it may rain but hopefully it won’t be as cool as it was today!

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