happy döner makes you schöner

andy, this one's for you...
we're in köln now for a day or two and this will be our first post from germany. everything so far has been excellent. the plane ride completely according to plan, the plane food not too unsettling and the arrival in frankfurt much smoother than the last time. as the pictures will soon show, there was no sleeping on the side of the pick up lane outside the arrivals area, no wondering when someone was going to come pick us up, no stuttering in german (well, that's not entirely true) asking where we might find this completely hidden hotel in the back of büro stadt where there don't seem to be any actual people working even though it was midday and we were surrounded by absolutey nothing but offices...
we got to the main train station, dropped our bags in the lockers and headed out into frankfurt on a much cooler day than the one we left in nyc. it felt good to be surrounded by the language we've both been practicing for whatever length of time but as the opposite was hoped i was just a bit frustrated to find that once again, i felt totally out of my league trying to understand anything. funny enough i knew most if not all of the words, just couldn't figure out how the damn hell they went together to form intelligent sentences. anyway, the frustration didn't last long and i think we're both at least pretty comfortable hearing the language, however much we might not understand. we've also had some good practice sessions with some very understanding locals which have helped to build the confidence, especially today in köln at this total hippie restaurant that had a great open-faced vegan sandwich called a 'duddel'. quite tasty vegetables in a bit of an oil and spiced-rosemary dressing with great service to boot. the best recommendation yet, matt and i were looking totally lost standing on some corner sort of near the university quarter arguing over the map when a nice lady around our age decided to ask us if we needed help. after a bit of stumbling and confusion over whether we wanted her to continue in english or german we ended up getting some directions, in german, to a vegetarian friendly 'hippie house' down the street, under the elevated train tracks, take a right at the first street where there's some (couldn't really understand here) stuff on the corner and somewhere down that street we should find something. perfect. vague directions, super food, friendly service, great atmosphere, and most definitely a 'hippie house'. called 'cafe duddel'. go there. lots of bikes around, too... when we get to a computer that we can plug the camera into you'll see. until then...