Ich bin ein Frankfurter

After arriving in Frankfurt Stu and I spent the afternoon with an an American girl studying in Frankfurt that Stu had met.  We grabbed some food andnhung out at a little middle eastern cafe.  

I brought Stu's luggage with me from Bacharach as well as the shoes he had purchased in Amsterdam.  In celebration of our reunion he busted out the shoes and we wore them while walking around town.  Stu wore the yellow ones and I wore the shiny blue ones.  We had several people stop us and comment on our shoes and were getting a lot of looks.  It was pretty funny.

Even though Frankfurt was an accident, it seemed like a worthy town to check out.  We checked into the hostel right outside the train station which seemed to be in a not so great part of town - lots of sketchy looking people and plenty of sex shops.  Among the sex shops was a little guitar store we went to check out, but it was closed.

That evening Stu worked from then hostel lounge while I played cards with some of the other guests.  I lost horribly.  After cards I made friends with another table of people, mostly Koreans, a guy from Belgium, and a Nigerian.  We spent the evening talking and joking.  The Koreans kept saying something about wanting to go to the "mainsleeber.". None of us were quite sure what the meant, but we decided ton follow along.

We had our suspicions that it had something to do with the sex shops, but after arriving at our destination we learned that "Mainsleeber" was their way of saying "main river.". The Guy from Belgium brought drinks for everyone and one of the koreans was making everyone screwdrivers.

After I got back Stu announced that he was going home and had to go to the train station in the middle of the night.  We talked philosophy for a while until a drifted off to sleep.  In the morning he was gone and I set out on the rest of my adventure alone.  

The next day I got up and went to the guitar store, which was right around the corner.  I found a cool Martin travel guitar and bought it - fits perfectly on my back pack.  I then rode the subway to a large indoor/outdoor mall and shopped around, hung out at the Starbucks and used their free wifi (thank goodness for Starbucks), and eventually headed back. 

I spent the rest of the afternoon back at the "mainsleeber" under a tree playing guitar.  That evening I went back to the hostel and tried to use their Internet but it was terrible and I couldn't get it to work.  I went to my room and met an older guy there who was traveling from Lebanon.

I told him I was from the united states and he began saying that it was okay, the US and Lebanon had very good relations - as if he was worried I would dislike him or something,  he then began cataloging for me all the people who had rippednhim off and all the money he had lost on bad business deals - one of which he was traveling to "take care of" now.  I didn't understand most of what he was saying  but he really did enjoy talking a lot.  His name was also Sam.  He gave me a bunch of sketchy looking middle eastern candy (seriously, those guys don't know how to make good candy). 

I eventually got away and went to the lounge to get some water.  I had been communicating with my friend Tessa since I left Amsterdam and learned she was in Prague filming a commercial.  I had nowhere else I needed to be, and no travel companion to get approval from, so I booked a train to Prague to meet her. I had to wake up early for the train the next day, so I went to bed.