Lesson #3 Go Green


Frankfurt, as well as all of Germany, has taken recycling to a whole new level and everyone participates, not just the hairy-legged tree-hugger around the corner or the PTA mom trying to be a good example for her peers (it's less about what her kids think). The reason is this: you will be fined 80Euro for not participating, and the garbage men will make note of it. Many homes/apartments just have three colored coded square garbage cans in their kitchens. Plus a plastic bottle recycling center at every grocery store where a machine will print out what each returned plastic bottle is worth, where you can then get money back as much as 15 cents per bottle. Plastic grocery bags cost money as much a 99 cents to help encourage people saving their bags to reuse them for the next trip to the store, which everyone does or they bring their own special grocery carrier. The recycling categories are slightly different than ours in the states though. Everything fits into a category.


Paper, cardboard and newspaper
Packaging-any form that isn’t cardboard
Compost-Banana peels, etc. And anything else that doesn’t fit into the other categories.


Now I know you are all wondering about one major category -- glass. About every few blocks one can find a large recycling drop off for glass. They actually categorize the glass by its color. Clear, brown, green -- yes, you guessed it those are the colors of beer bottles.









This is the outside of our apartment. We live on the bottom floor, those bottom three windows are ours.









A lot of the old buildings have this great tudor feel to them, with all the neat woodwork in the plaster. It looks like Hansel and Gretel still live there. Really this place is right out of a fairy tale!

Picture Update
Remember to click on picture to see it larger.

Roman Baths about 75 A.D.
10 minutes from apt.

Old Frankfurt
destoyed during the war, rebuilt to look the same in 1950's

about 10 minutes from apt.

Bruenfels Castle from the 1400's

about two hours from our place via street car, train, and bus.

Note- Wiley was too afraid to put his head in the whole. He insisted on a picture though.

Our Street

Look how green everything is. It is beautiful!

Lesson #2 Think Compact






I’m sure you’ve all seen this oversized roller-skate from movies, but we actually see them all the time here. They’re called Smart Cars. It’s so small that you can actually park it on the sidewalk in Germany. Admittedly, parking on the sidewalk is normal round these parts, but usually you can only put two wheels on the sidewalk. A Smart gets to put all four wheels on – which puts it in the same category as a bicycle (that is, if bicycles had four wheels – so maybe a bicycle with a side car).

Ben told me that once a Smart Car was waiting at an intersection and it got nudged from behind by a semi truck. The semi driver didn’t see the Smart Car, and somehow the Smart Car got lodged in its grill. According to the story, the semi driver drove about twenty kilometers until another driver flagged him down and alerted him to the large, metallic bug stuck to the front of it. I don’t know if it’s true, but I want it to be true because after seeing one, I totally believe it’s possible.

Incidentally, everything else here is compact, too. Our fridge is the size of a dishwasher. Our dishwasher is the size of a microwave. Our microwave is the size of a toaster. And our toaster is the size of a cigarette lighter. Our freezer is so small that I can’t find it anywhere -- literally. We’ve been in the apartment two weeks and I still haven’t spotted it. It’s probably vacationing somewhere with our oven, because we haven’t seen it either. People try to live simply, rather than filling their lives with stuff. A great lesson.

Lesson #1 "Beer Garden"

We are enjoying our time in Frankfurt, but my blogging has slowed. The key board is arranged differently and I haven't figured out how to post pictures yet from our little local internet cafe.

Just know that all is well. I am already feeling sad that we are not staying longer. We are learning so much though. Wiley and Rosa have made friends with the Israeli kids in our apartment building. We are doing tons with them, the great thing is that even though the kids can't understand each other, Tag is still the same. Thank goodness!

Our Israeli friends took me and the kids to our first Beer Garten yesterday. They asked me out for a drink. I wanted to be cool and go. I told them I don't drink but would be happy to go with them for heck of it. They laughed at me and said they don't just serve beer. It was basically an outdoor restuarant. They same kind you can find anywhere in Europe. The name of them just fouled me up.

Lots of lessons learned already.