So many days on vacation and so many experiences potentially lost to the fog of being busy all the time. But here I am to write these posts letting us account for each day covering the important moments. Maybe, like Jutta, we all suffer from a kind of dementia where the new information coming in takes precedence as we try to figure out how to deal with the new day. If yesterday was packed with things relatively mundane, why put importance on them and elevate them into long-term memory? But when we can return to even a fragment of the minutiae, it often happens that a flood of impressions arrives with the hint. We’ve seen with Jutta how an old photograph or piece of music aloft forgotten memories, how will this work when blogs with hundreds or thousands of photographs along with the text accompanying them can bring context and intense reminders to people?

Our lunches with Jutta are never brief affairs, as we typically end up spending between two and three hours camping out at our table. This being Germany, nobody cares how long a customer occupies their place in the restaurant as it doesn’t affect a tip when everyone is earning an hourly wage that isn’t dependent on our largess. There are differences in service for sure, but one difference I don’t miss over here is the server absolutely ignoring you once you’ve settled your bill. So, we just sit in the sun, take our time, order more water, Coke, or coffee, and enjoy chatting. By the way, the talk rarely takes aim at the weather other than maybe the briefest of observations regarding the current moment. Sports and TV are also off the plate unless the ladies are talking about a documentary or something from the news. We do talk a lot about family, travel, and the people we are watching.

After three hours on the first course, it’s time for ice cream, more coffee, and mineral water over at a corner Eis Cafe (ice cream parlor). I think we only spent about 90 minutes here before starting the slow walk back to the assisted living center. While Jutta has greater mobility with a walker, she’s still nearly as slow as any sloth or snail, moving nearly imperceptibly, requiring nearly 30 minutes to get her somewhere that it would take anyone else maybe 5 minutes to walk. Writing this feels like an exaggeration, but I’ve made the walk of 100 meters (300 feet) to the Main River and 260 meters (850 feet) to the restaurant we visit so many times that I have a pretty good sense of the average to get between places.

And with that, it’s time to make the walk back to the facility, passing this bear we pass nearly every day we’re in Frankfurt.

That giant teddy bear has a friend nearby who, weather allowing, is blowing bubbles non-stop.

We are dropping off Jutta back in her room, where, in one relatively small room, she’s hanging on to the mementos that bring her joy. From the photobooks I put together of some of her travels to the map of Indigenous peoples across America, including the Navajo rug, she wove herself on one of her many visits. There’s some furniture she cherishes, along with various photos of Stephanie, Klaus, and Katharina, just enough to warm her heart that her family is out there, hopefully doing well.

With the portable toilet that’s been ever-present on the right side of the street now gone, I just had to take one more photo of this sight. We walk by so often, and both love how the old-fashioned bridge connects the two sides of government offices that occupy this area.

Time for shopping now instead of waiting until the last day as we usually do. The first stop was at Blutsgeschwister for a bag to replace our worn toiletry bag and a new umbrella, both with the same gnome design.

Well, this is embarrassing. It’s December 2023, and I’m moving through a bunch of old posts, rechecking them for grammar mistakes and links that have died, when I discovered something wrong with this post. That part of what’s wrong is that from the bag above, there was some missing text, and all of the subsequent photos and text from here down. The photos had been uploaded, meaning that there was text here at one time, but inexplicably, it’s all missing. I searched for cached versions and checked Archive.org, all to no avail. I do know that we were in MyZeil near Hauptwache with Caroline searching for a perfume that was beguiling her as she smelled it on the streets as people walked by.

I’d know these clothes anywhere; we could only have been shopping at Gudrun Sjödén.

The guy who worked here at Red Wing Shoes was incredibly helpful in doing a thorough measuring of Caroline’s feet, both of them. Unfortunately, they didn’t have her size of the Iron Ranger boot in stock and couldn’t have it in before we were to leave Germany, but the service was amazing nonetheless.

My memory is thin here, but the photo was likely chosen as I  had something positive to say about the festive nature of this busker ensemble that was getting their groove on here in the main shopping area.

No photos of dinner, family, or anything else followed this billboard in the subway advertising cigarettes. While it’s tragic that we apparently lost about six hours of a day on vacation in Germany, in the scheme of things, it’s nothing as our documenting of over a thousand other travel days is a treasure trove of otherwise forgotten moments.

Part 1 of this entry will be published shortly, but for now: here we are on the other side of the same day. Everything began as usual with breakfast; though with Klaus and Stephanie out of town spending some days in Konstanz with a side trip to Zurich, we had to walk over to Brot & Freunde to fetch our morning meal. With this being my first visit to this nearby shop, I was astonished at the variety of Brötchen as in 19 choices not counting pretzel variations. This, from a small shop away from all major shopping areas, is a non-descript tiny place, and this doesn’t even take into account the more than a dozen sweet pastries on offer too! If that weren’t enough, they have an espresso machine to make us hot drinks too, which we need to take advantage of as we don’t know how to operate the coffee machine at home.

While Caroline’s smile suggests a staged photo, she was editing my entry about the Popel eater (boogers) and was having a laugh at my description and, of course, the use of the word Popel, which is probably the first-ever use here on my blog. We are taking things slow this morning as we’re waiting for our niece (Nichte) to arrive around 11:30. This also turned out to be a good opportunity to do laundry as even we need to stop on occasion in service of the mundane.

Between things, Caroline spotted a photo album that she was curious about and grabbed it. It turned out to be old photos of Jutta and classmates from the late 1940s to the early 1950s. My mother-in-law, at age 14, can be seen in the top left photo, front row, far left. From that, you might be able to identify her in the other three images.

As is typical with people with dementia, Jutta was able to identify nearly everybody in these images, including first and last names, without thinking twice. As for me, days later, I have zero recollection of who she mentioned, but I suppose that’s not all that important.

Here’s Jutta at age 17 in 1952.

From the 60 or so photos in the album, these were the ones we felt were a good representation to set aside for digital posterity.

Almost perfectly punctual, Katharina arrives to find these two strangers in the place she grew up in. Our niece is living in Darmstadt, where she attends university. Katharina and I had some time together back in June, so I’m leaving the Tante und Nichte (aunt and niece) for a day with each other. You can follow what I did in the blog entry A Walk Around Frankfurt.

Katharina took a quick look at the potted plants in the kitchen and living room and applied water where needed. She clearly inherited Klaus’ green thumbs. Caroline sent this photo of the Venus fly trap to Klaus to assure him that it had survived his absence. The girls watched a fly hovering around the plant and even landing on one of the traps in suspense, but the fly was able to escape, maybe because the plant was not in need of fresh nourishment.

Shortly thereafter, after looking up the local vegan lunch options, niece and aunt were on the way for their own fresh nourishment at Dominion Food Revolution on Gruneburgweg.

Not realizing that the vegan shawarma with hummus would be such a gargantuan portion, Caroline was happy that Katharina’s burger was small enough to allow her to share the dish.

Both took photos of the dishes and enjoyed their conversation in the warm sun. Afterward, dessert was in order.

Katharina picked a brownie and Caroline a Middle Eastern pudding with rosewater, coconut, and pistachio crumbles. Since Katharina still had some time before her return train to Darmstadt, they decided to swing by “Oma Jutta” at Lebenshaus for a short visit. Criminally, Caroline missed the opportunity for a selfie of all three, but since my middle name is “forgiveness” (among others), I won’t hold it against her for long. When it was time for Jutta to head over to the dining room for supper, Caroline walked over to Eiserner Steg to meet me and pursue our own dinner plans.

Can’t forget that we’re in a pandemic, though we are thousands of miles from home on vacation as occasionally the explosive numbers and widespread movement of a new variant in America take hold. While trying to avoid current events, people want to talk, and headlines pop up in the subways on animated billboards. So, we’re going home later this month to the breakout of the COVID variant called Mu. Germany will vote on a new chancellor a few days after we leave, and a note or two about Afghanistan made it to our eyes. Enough of that stuff; I only mention it because today I’m opening with this photo of us on the subway that has us in masks. In previous days, I’ve tried to keep masks out of the picture to offer a semblance of normal as it existed before the age of the Pandemic.

Yesterday, I visited St. Leonhard church and learned of the oldest building in the area, St. Justinus church in Frankfurt-Höchst. Ironically, we had just cycled past it the other day on our family bike tour, and I had no idea. As I brought this up with Caroline, she pointed out casually that this had been one of her many “Fun Facts of the Day” at work but hadn’t thought of it until I mentioned it. With some time available this morning, we took the train out to cross this important historical building off our list of places to visit.

Well, that was the plan. Little could we have guessed that a Catholic church would be closed Monday through Thursday due to the pandemic. Maybe we can come out to Höchst on a subsequent visit to see the Saint Justinus church that’s been standing here and in continuous use since 830, and I do mean the year and not 8:30. I posted a photo of the church from the river the other day during our bike ride and I can’t find a better view from where we are now so I snapped this image of Jesus on the Cross at the side of the church where two gentlemen informed us about the closure much to our disappointment.

Nothing left to do but make the best of a poor situation and return to the square where we had lunch the other day (under the blue umbrellas) and grab a bite to eat before going to see Jutta.

Our very German meal at Gasthaus Zum Schwan of pork variations with bratkartoffeln and cabbage was on order. Caroline opted to supplement the food with a hefeweizen.

Though we couldn’t commune with Gott (God) in his house here in Höchst, we could take some time to appreciate the old town.

There’s so much being said here with stickers that go beyond personal brands and veer into politics and social commentary, but with me falling behind in my blogging, I don’t really have time to decipher the sticker about Bolsanaro, Fuck Peter Booth, or FKTN which is not Fukutin a.k.a., a protein-coding gene.

While this distant suburb of Frankfurt has some quaint and historical qualities, there’s something provincial I sense here, making the place unappealing. I should blame this squarely on my own bias as there’s something about the inflection of the working-class Germans and their chain-smoking that gives them the appearance of blunt dullards on the verge of losing their humanity as they slide down the evolutionary ladder.

Caroline most certainly let out a loud groan reading this last sentence, but to ignore Germany’s class awareness is to simply stick one’s head in the sand, just as Germans are apt to do. I’ve written before about how Germans do not vacation in their own country unless they are skiing in the Alps or visiting Sylt up on the Wattenmeer. This, in my summation, is because, in those two locations, Germans will encounter other wealthy Germans, while in nearly all other locations they risk running into those fellow citizens that embarrass them.

Enough of picking at scabs; time to get on the train and return to the big city.

I walked with Caroline over to Lebenshaus, where Jutta lives; they have a nice clean toilet that’s free. From there, the plan was for me to catch up on writing.

As I headed away from the ladies, I ended up going to the coffee shop I knew they’d be visiting so I could surprise my mother-in-law.

And here they come.

We are at Einstein Kaffee on Römer, where mother and daughter are having a slice of Johannisbeeren cake and coffee while I try to focus on the writing. Once the cake was devoured and the last drop of coffee gone, the ladies headed back to Lebenshaus.

A little later, Klaus joined me for a short time, and when Caroline returned from Lebenshaus, they walked off to meet with Stephanie for a rice bowl dinner at a nearby favorite joint while stayed on to finish my writing for the day. A crowd had been developing in the center of the square outside Einstein; it was a political rally held by the Green Party.

People in the cafe were complaining about the size of the crowd and how last year’s Christmas market had been canceled due to expected crowding, and yet, for politics, the authorities are afraid to impose restrictions as they find that their own voices being heard face to face with the electorate is too important. Whatever serves power is allowed; whatever serves the individual is tertiary after power and money. I do not mean this ironically, as with Germany being in the driver’s seat of the Europan economic engine, they better keep the balance of governance in top form if the EU is to survive.

Never have we slept so well after a flight, but after burning the midnight oil, we slept soundly for seemingly days, only waking after 7:00. A slow traditional breakfast of Brötchen (rolls) that was delivered to Klaus and Stephanie’s front door while not taken in bed, were enjoyed in ways only available to those in Germany. This extraordinary indulgence was followed by some blogging duties that took us till nearly 11:00 before we got out. We emerged from the subway here at Hauptwache and started our long walk across Zeil on the way to lunch.

With me having just been in Germany a mere eight weeks ago, I’m finding things all too familiar, and that is hampering my ability to take photos. It seems that it was all just photographed yesterday. Still, this is now Caroline’s return home, so I’ll endeavor to take advantage of the nice weather and capture something or other so the narrative regarding this adventure will have some visual clues to where it is we are exploring these days.

We are walking up Bergerstrasse in order to make time aside from family and various obligations to find some spontaneity while immersing ourselves in the small details that make up the city. Graffiti, posters, and stickers are some of the quickest ways to drill into the zeitgeist of the places we visit, and when the cultural scribblings to me are provocative or sexually fetishized, they are quick to grab my attention, such as the submissive mantis-human, the casual use of the word “Fuck” on a political poster, and the reference to Fridays For Future movement.

Here, we pass a rose garden on Im Prüfling. It’s a relatively long walk to our lunch, but that’s okay, as it’s such a beautiful late summer day.

Along the way, we stopped at a shop that Klaus recommended to Caroline as a good source of rhubarb soda, and while there she also found a rhubarb juice she picked up. Sadly, it is the wrong time of year for her to buy fresh rhubarb danishes because, as you might glean by now, Caroline loves rhubarb, known as rhabarber in German.

By the way, behind Caroline is a place called Döneria, where we shared lunch. Maybe you can tell from the name of the business that we were having a Döner, a wonderful, incredibly yummy Döner. While I’ve said it before, it bears repeating: America doesn’t do Döner except for that place in New York City where we once found it. The closest America gets is with their yucky gyros, but that doesn’t really come all that close.

From our midday meal, we jumped on the train for a quick ride to Römer for another visit with my mother-in-law.

Having collected Caroline’s mother, we moseyed over to the banks of the Main River and grabbed a free park bench while I went to buy the ladies an ice cream and the three of us coffees.

While this is the smile of a happy mom and someone who dearly loves her family, Jutta has dementia, and sometimes it shows through more so than other times. Later in the day when talking with her other daughter, Stephanie, Jutta conveyed what a nice time she had this afternoon with me while Caroline was off with a friend of hers. My mother-in-law’s failing memory was confusing that we’d be meeting with Caroline’s friend on Friday and that the three of us were, in fact, together this afternoon.

There’s obviously a tragedy at work here when you must take into account that much of what we’ll share with her over these few weeks of vacation in Frankfurt will be lost, but during our visits, she couldn’t be happier, and she enthusiastically shares with us how much she loves us being here.

Making plans to enjoy the little precious time we have left becomes all the more important as nobody knows when she’ll either not even recognize us or she might grow angry due to imagined neglect. Right now, her certainty about the past is strong, and she talks with authority about those days, but the last few days and even an hour ago are lost in the haze of dementia. Strangely enough, she can even talk about her awareness of falling into this ailment that afflicts the elderly from her previous knowledge of how it works, but that doesn’t allow things to break through regarding how it might be affecting her at any particular moment.

And so this is where we sat for the next three hours, watching people come and go along with the boats ferrying people up and down the river who were out for a short cruise and a glass of beer or maybe wine.

Maybe Caroline and I should have had our own Döner earlier, as I was getting hungry by the time we brought Jutta back to her room. Trying to figure out where to eat wasn’t easy, though it should have been, as Caroline is seriously flexible compared to me. She wasn’t ready for more Grüne Soße (Green Sauce), and I wasn’t ready for more carbs, so we settled on a place I’d visited on my previous trip over in the Bahnhofsviertal (main train station quarter).

More Turkish food sounded great to me, and the mixed grill plate for two was perfect. We are at Kebab Han on Münchenerstrasse, and while I just lamented more carbs, the majority of the fries remained after we finished the lamb, chicken, and beef extravaganza.

Time for some people watching at a trendy bar. Helium on Bleidenstrasse was just the place. Caroline got set up with some of her favorite paint thinner better known as an Old Fashioned, only this one was outfitted as a Dirty Bastard version. I brought out the trusty computer to finish yesterday’s blog post and prepare today’s photos.

So, not a lot of photos to share and not a lot of moments to convey, but our time with family is taking precedence during these early days in Germany. Soon, we’ll be on some other journeys that involve tourism that I’ll be happy to snap off hundreds of photos of exotic sights to tax my writing and time management skills in order to bring you into our three-week adventure away from home.

We landed, deplaned, zipped through customs, and headed downstairs to the train platforms to buy a monthly pass for public transport before getting on the train to the main station (Hauptbahnhof) in the center of Frankfurt. Once in the city, momentum got us to the U-Bahn for the short ride out to Heddernheim, where my in-laws Klaus and Stephanie live and where we’ll be staying. After dropping our bags, we were nearly just as soon gone and on our way back to Frankfurt.

Not far from the old town center is Lebenshaus on the Main River, where Jutta Engelhardt, my mother-in-law, is now a resident in an assisted living situation. This is the first time Caroline and Jutta have seen each other face to face, other than on Skype or WhatsApp, since the summer of 2019.

After catching up on a few things and sharing our experience flying business class, we got Jutta up and out of her room so we could make our way to lunch.

Repeating my lunch experience with Jutta back in June, we headed over to Römer. On our approach, the telltale signs of a wedding were seen and heard. Towards the center of the photo is the Standesamt, where people enter their civil marriage, and if you look closely, you can see a small wedding party over there. The “heard” part of the ceremony comes from the carillon of the Alte Nikolai church, which is used to play songs requested by the bride and groom. Strangely enough, a song from the anime film Spirited Away and a traditional Japanese folk melody called Cherry Blossoms were being played on the bells.

Like me, prior to my last visit, Caroline hadn’t ever eaten at Römer Berg either. Let me clarify that we’d not eaten at the restaurants here, but we enjoyed a thing or two during the annual Christmas Market when we lived in Frankfurt. So, today’s lunch is brought to us by Zum Standesämtchen. As per my usual, I had green sauce and schnitzel while Caroline opted for Leberkäse (fried mystery meat) with Spiegelei and Brafkartoffeln.

After five hours with Jutta (including a 30-minute impromptu post-lunch nap, better referred to as passed-out, in chairs), Caroline and I needed to get moving as jet lag was threatening us with demands for proper sleep. A lemon ice cream cone and a walk along the Main River on a beautiful day were just the kind of wakeful therapy we needed.

One thing led to another, and after Caroline had her picture taken with the Frankfurt police mascot, we were invited past the barrier to learn about crime prevention in the Frankfurt area. This was certainly not the first thing that would show up on many people’s list of things to do when visiting a European capital city, but then again, we were tired and were seriously familiar enough here that we could afford to get outside our scope of desired experiences. It turned out to be quite interesting to learn about the history of the Stadtpolizei (city police) and that Caroline’s open purse was an invitation to grab something, which I’m always warning her about. The furry creature serving as the mascot is actually supposed to be a lion, in line with the Hessian crest, but we fail to see much of a resemblance.

With the day starting to cool off, we headed back to Heddernheim so I could grab a wool undershirt I rely on when it gets cold, but it turns out I forgot to pack it, just like my fleece. Accepting that I’ll likely freeze to death here at the end of summer if I were to remain outside, we were only at Klaus and Stephanie’s long enough to have a coffee and then got right back out on the train for a trip back into the city center.

Maybe you were expecting Shaquille O’Neal? Well, we can’t deliver him, but the next best thing is the Grüne Soße Festival in Frankfurt. We couldn’t be happier to be here, though we could be better rested. That lack of sleep doesn’t matter as we consider ourselves incredibly fortunate to be able to attend the festival. During previous events, we only heard about it from Klaus and Stephanie, who have attended every year, only having missed out on the inaugural first year.

The Grüne Soße Festival, for those who don’t read German, is a Green Sauce Festival. How does one celebrate green sauce, you might wonder? Well, Grüne Soße is a regional comfort food unique to the Frankfurt area that at one time was mostly available in spring and early summer, but with greater demand and popularity, the dish is available with slight modifications due to the availability of particular herbs that the dish requires. Starting with seven different fresh herbs and a yogurt base or something similar, this sauce is popular with boiled potatoes and hardboiled eggs and is also great on schnitzel.

The pitcher above doesn’t really have anything to do with Grüne Soße other than Apfelwein goes well with the dish we’ll be enjoying tonight. How would my reader know that this “Bembel” or jug is used for holding “Apfelwein,” a popular hard apple cider here in Frankfurt? Well, because I’m sharing that with you right now. So, if you ever find yourself in Frankfurt, just know that these things are unique to this area, and you’d sorely miss out on this tradition if you fail to go out and find it.

Much of the nuance of the evening’s entertainment was lost on me as the speed of German was not aimed at those for whom German is a second language. No matter, the general idea of things was understood as “All Thing Green Sauce” was the underlying thread.

During an intermission in the festivities, plates with seven different samples of green sauce (I hope you see what they did there, considering that Grüne Soße is made up of seven different herbs) were delivered to every guest. Green eggs were delivered, followed by boiled new potatoes. Oh, as soon as we arrived earlier, bread and drinks were served, and it should be pointed out that food and drinks were included in the price of the seating reservation.

During the first part of the entertainment, clues were offered regarding the various green sauces, and then after we tried them all, we played a kind of Grüne Soße Lotto trying to match the sauces to which local restaurant made it. I didn’t win, but someone else at our table for eight did!

The second half of the evening’s entertainment was more my flavor, with a great Abba parody put to the idea of green sauce, and a local theater company supplied some stilt-walking fairies that moved between the tables.

I estimated that there were nearly 500 of us here in the audience tonight, and this was just one of seven evenings that this sampling and entertainment will be occurring during the three weeks that the festival is happening this year.

The day has been a whirlwind, with two days of experience shoved into one. The idea that we landed 16 hours earlier and are just now crawling back to Heddernheim in the middle of the night is crazy. Exhausted is our final destination, but this extraordinary first day in Germany will keep it as one of the most memorable. Big, big thanks to Klaus and Stephanie for picking up the extra tickets for us to join them at this annual Green Sauce Festival and once again welcoming us into their home.