This morning we were awakened by the most annoying sound in the entire world. You know that noise that Jim Carey and his sidekick made in the movie �Dumb and Dumber� that they called the most annoying noise ever? Well that was nothing. The hostel was being worked on, updated I guess, and at about 7:00 AM the workers decided that they needed to use the loudest weapon in their arsenal. They were using some type of air hammer or drill or something to bust up the tile in the hallway just down from our room. The noise was so intense that I swear it was vibrating my bones against my skin. I guess I can describe it like this. Imagine having one of those vibrating back massagers and putting it against your shin bone, or your teeth, or against that knot on the back of your head. I felt really sorry for the people that had gone out partying the night before and were hung over enough already. Luckily for me, my alarm was set for seven anyway so I wasn�t too pissed off. In my journal I originally wrote, �The free breakfast wasn�t too spectacular, but what could I expect?� But I later realized that it was actually better than most. After eating a little I went back to my room, packed up my stuff, and then checked out.
My next mission was to cross the river towards the downtown and the shopping district to try to find fuel for my stove. This task proved to be very daunting. I thought I would walk around and try to find a sporting goods store, get the gas, and then head out of town. As I was walking I watched a man getting his �fix� right on the sidewalk by sticking a needle in the top of his wrist. Maybe I have led a sheltered life, but I was shocked that he would be doing that where people could see. It was in the business district of downtown Frankfurt. It wasn�t a scummy part of town.
When I was on the other side of downtown I finally decided to ask someone if they knew where I could get some backpacking supplies. This is when I had my first encounter with the German police force. The police van was on a side street tucked away under some trees in a small parking lot. As I walked up to the van I saw that there were two policemen sitting in the front. I walked up to the passenger side to see if they could be of any assistance. They told me the name of a store (Sports Arena) and said that it was about one kilometer back the way I had just come. And to keep it consistent to this point, they too gave me horrible directions. I ended up having to ask two more people on the way, and they both turned out to be only slightly helpful. The last man said that the street I was looking for was about two hundred and fifty meters ahead. It ended up being about twice that. When I finally found the store it wasn�t even on the street that I had been told that it was. I was lucky that I even saw it because it wasn�t even in sight of the street that I thought it should have been on. And by the way, that was the longest �.62 mile� I have ever walked. The store was very big (three stories), and I didn�t feel comfortable tramping through it with all my gear on, nor did I want to leave my pack outside. I went into two different smaller sporting goods stores but neither had the fuel for my stove. I finally decided to just buy some that was a different brand even though the maker of my stove was very adamant about not using any fuel other than their brand. I realized that if I were a stove maker I would say the same thing in order to �cover my butt� for liability purposes, and for the sake of increasing revenues. By this time it was after noon and I wasn�t sure if I would be able to walk all the way out of town and actually find a place to camp before it got dark. Also, I had acquired a pain in my lower groin area the previous day. After walking for three hours I had realized that it was really bothering me. As much as I hated to, I decided it would be best to stay one more night in the hostel to rest up and the help acclimate myself to the culture shock and get over the jet-lag.
I made it back to the hostel at 12:45. Check-in started at 1:00 so I sat down for a minute and then got in line. There was about six or eight people in front of me but it still took until 1:50 for me to get my room. I immediately went up, debagged, dawned my water bladder and sandals, and headed back downtown to return the fuel that I found out didn�t fit the threads on my stove. Of course it took forever to find the store again, but I finally made it. I then went to a Jack Wolfskin store that I had seen earlier in the day and found some fuel that was compatible with my stove. After munching on a mozzarella and tomato baguette and just checking out the city for a while, I headed back to the hostel. Before I went to my room I decided to re-visit the Rhine to catch about thirty minutes of shut-eye in the park next to the river.
After waking up I decided to explore the other side of town so I zigzagged my way thru the city checking out all the shops, pubs and bistros. Then, out of nowhere, I looked up to see the train station that I had been at the day before. It was much closer to the hostel than I had originally thought. I bet I walked an extra three miles to get from the station to the hostel the day before. The train station was a welcome sight because I knew it had a phone that would let me use my phone card. I went inside and called my sister in four or five, two-minute intervals. I then stopped in a market and spent less than 6 Euro on food that was dinner that night, lunch for the next two days, and a little added specialty to my macaroni and cheese dinner the following night. I took my food back to the hostel and started feasting on the balcony of the second floor. It was actually the third floor but over here they don�t count the first floor as a floor. So the second story is called the first floor, the third story is called the second floor, and so on. As I was eating a black man from somewhere in Africa came in and sat down. He pulled out a bag of cookies and started smacking like I have never heard anyone smack before. It was unreal. (I hadn�t originally mentioned him in my journal but I can still remember how loud this guy was when he was eating and had to include him) Then a young Bulgarian guy came in and sat at the table. He had just graduated high school and was going to be starting at the university in Frankfort soon. We talked for about an hour and a half and then went to crash out in our rooms with plans to meet at 7:30 in the morning for breakfast. I went back to my room to find four Japanese guys who didn�t speak English and a German who was sacked out in his bunk. I wrote, prayed and studied the map until 11:30 and was the last one to turn off my light.
