Frankfurt: The Central Hub of Germany (And a Trip to the US Embassy)
Today was a special day. It was time to get my passport renewed! I have had it for so long! We reserved an appointment at the US embassy/consulate 2 weeks early in Frankfurt, and since Lucas has never been to the city itself, we took the time to explore the area.
First up, Passport renewal at a US Embassy
There is an option to mail in the old passport to have it renewed, but it is a bit complicated. It involved mailing in a US check for payment, which I can not get when I live in Germany.
Our first stop was the embassy. My appointment was at 10:15, but we arrived about 30 minutes early because we didn’t want to be late. However, that wasn’t enough time. There was a huge line outside for people to enter (this could also have been due to Covid-19). There were ideally 2 different lines for foreigners and US citizens, and there was no one in the US Citizen line. We were excited at first because we thought we could skip the line! However, in the current situation, they only had one line for everyone. So we had to get in at the end of the line.
Tip: make sure you bring enough money for coin parking if you drive to the embassy. It cost 50 cents for 15 minutes. Between the two of us, we only had enough money in coins for 30 minutes. We decided to risk it, because if we went to the nearby ATM, we could also not get change.
We waited in line for about 50 minutes, only to find out that I was missing a shipping label. I thought they took care of the shipping, but apparently they required a prepaid shipping label, and only supplied the envelope. The welcome lady recommended walking down the street to a Kiosk where the teller would let you use his computer to get the label, for a fee, of course. He charged us €17 for just the label, which would have cost only €10 if I had printed it at home. He also tried to charge us €2 for an envelope, but the embassy said they would supply that. Despite him trying to force the envelope on me, I stood my ground and denied, which saved us €2.
When we walked back, we were allowed to cut to the front of the line, otherwise it would have been another 50 minutes for sure! I showed the lady my label, and she then gave me a receipt for the funds I owed. This was $50 for the passport renewal, and a $60 security check fee (the later would have been avoided if I was able to mail a check). It seems like the mail-in option is the cheaper way to go, as long as you are sure you send in the right papers, which I was also nervous about.
Even though we were basically 1 hour late, we still got seen. This was the case for the majority of the people in line. Some people even tried to cut us, because their appointment was in around 5 minutes, and our appointment time was overdue. That might not always be true, but in this case it seemed the appointment is more for knowing who is coming, not as much for actual time keeping.
We were given the okay to enter the building where we went through security. Metal detectors, xray, the whole nine yards. All electronics were taken, cellphone, smart watches, etc, and kept in a security box for until you were ready to leave. Even though the building is located in Germany, the interior still looks very American. Maybe I was a little biased because I knew I was at the US embassy, but the ceiling used faux ceilings and there was plastic wall edging near the floor. All the things which I only remember seeing in America.
After they finally called our number, we walked up to the window only to find out that I had filled out the wrong form! I had filled out the children’s passport form. Oops. Luckily, the lady gave me a new, proper form, and I was allowed to just step aside and fill it out and come back without waiting for more than 10 minutes. This was another good reason for going in person- I would have sent in the wrong items by mail otherwise!
Finally I handed the lady the proper items and paid $110. They accepted cash or cards. In case you’re interested, I asked what the whole process is from this point. She said they print the new passports in the USA and mail them back to Germany. I should have my new passport in a couple weeks! Yayy!!!
City Exploration
After our 1.5 hour visit, which ABSOLUTELY went over our parking timer (but no ticket, phew), we head out to explore the city of Frankfurt. It was about lunch time, so we decided to start looking for a restaurant. We couldn’t decide between Subway, a sushi place, or a fancy cafe situated in an old city tower. We were leaning towards the tower cafe, but it was a little pricey, and we weren’t looking to spend more than 5 EUR for lunch, so we went on the search for more of a bakery/low cost cafe.
After about a 15 minute walk, we found 2 suitable places nestled by the city center. One of them looked like a meat market that served to-go lunches. They (Eberts) had a long line out the door, so we figured they must be pretty good. They had options like the original Frankfurt wurst, noodle soup, and salads. Lucas settled on currywurst and french fries, and I had chicken noodle soup with Maultaschen (think of dumplings, but more like a rolled up noodle filled with a nutty spinach filling). It was really delicious, and I would absolutely go back. This place sure knew what they were doing! The currywurst was also pretty good according to Lucas, but he especially liked the french fries. Germans know how to make a good french frie! You could even take canned soup and wursts home if you wanted, and we didn’t, but in retrospect we probably should have. That would have been tasty later!
We were really full from lunch, but a Frankfurt specialty is apple wine, and so we set out on a hunt for some. We went walking through the city center and mall area, and stumbled upon a farmer’s market at the end of the street. They were selling local fruits, vegetables, breads, baked goods, meat, honey, fish, and other such things. It’s really easy to have a simple lunch there, too! While walking through the market we found a few different vendors selling the apple wine. We picked a vendor that had a good price, and enjoyed a glass of the wine. I didn’t care for it too much, I thought it had a weird cheesy after-taste, but Lucas thought it was okay. He described it as just being a more dry and sour type of wine. It definitely didn’t taste too much like apples.
Then we took a walk down to the riverside of the Main river to get away from some of the city. There we happened upon what looked like an old railroad bridge that had been converted to a pedestrian walking bridge. It was covered in locks! Locks, locks EVERYWHERE!! It traversed the Main river, and gave a great opportunity to soak in the view of the city skyline, as well as the quant-looking houses from across the river.
From the bridge, a lot of skyscrapers with bank logos can be seen. It turns out Frankfurt is a central hub of trade businesses and banking in Germany, and Europe in general. Steps away from the bridge was an older part of the city, with an old rustic and timbered looking building. This building was some kind of special bakery, as well as having an ice cream service station at the window (Condit Couture). And of course, we couldn’t pass up the ice cream.
I had white coffee ice cream- it was sooo good! The white coffee tasted kind of like cacao nibs, but not as bitter. It was so good I had to go back for more! Lucas had strawberry and lemon ice cream. He said the flavor combination was amazing. We sat on the steps outside the cafe, watching the people as we enjoyed our ice cream. Afterwards, we kept walking, and found the old city-center by accident (the Römerburg). It still contains the original city center building and trade center.
Outside of these buildings is where the book burning occurred during WWII. You can also see a lot of the old timbered style houses and buildings located in this historical city-center. We ended up walking by some ancient Roman ruins and St. Bartholomäus Church as we were trying to find our way back tour car. All-in-all, Frankfurt definitely seemed like a pretty cool city! Considering how large it is, it was actually quite clean, with not a lot of clutter or litter lying around, this felt quite different from what we are typically used to in Essen.
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