Bankfurt

Caveat: We're not corporate types.

BW hasn't looked back since moving to Europe and leaving the business arena, and it's been 10 years since I was a journalist in a cubicle at a newspaper where the publisher would push into the newsroom once a month to write a column about the Rotary Club or sailing on his woody (um, wooden boat) in Florida.

Needless to say, when I went to IB training in Frankfurt am Main, aka "Mainhattan", aka "Bankfurt", I wasn't crazy about the tourist guidebook suggestions to check out the skyscrapers of the city's financial district. We're from America; skyscrapers are a bit yawn-worthy in comparison with things like castles and cathedrals. And, man, Frankfurt is the most American-looking city I've seen in Europe.

After my fist day of training sessions, I set off from my Sachsenhausen hotel and walked 30 minutes to the Eisener Steg, a pedestrian bridge flanked with rusty remnants of love.

It led to Römerberg, the old city center, reconstructed after WWII. The small square was blanketed with Ampelmännchen, the sprightly little men on East German traffic lights. At least something fun came out of Communism.

I tried to get into the nearby Frankfurter Kunstverein art museum, but it had some sold-out event. The outside looked like a gnarled, leafless Banyan tree.

So, I walked along the Zeil - apparently one of the top attractions in Frankfurt. It's essentially a concrete shopping stretch of mall after mall after mall. (I'm not a mall person, either.)

The second night, I simply went to a German pub and had German food with some gals from the conference. No museums, no ZaraMangoH&M, and it was lovely.

On the last day of training, I had a few hours before flying out and so asked a hotel receptionist with drawn-on cheekbones and falsies what I should see. She marked a spot on a map, and I walked to it. It was a lackluster residential area. A few blocks away, I found a couple of deathly quiet streets obviously set up for nightlife, with Irish pubs and shisha bars and Mexican food. It was Sunday afternoon.

On the walk back, though, I stumbled upon Old Sachsenhausen and a small beer garden with a couple of Apfelwein haunts. Perfect!

Fortified by a tart Apfelwein (dryish cider), I walked back to hotel, shared a cab to the airport with some Croatians, and bid Frankfurt adieu. It wasn't a sad goodbye ;)

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Not just clay pots

I heard of "pottery festival" and I envisioned a lot of boring clay pots.

I attended "pottery festival" and I was awash in artistry, music, color and delight. It was a perfect way to spend a Sunday outside of the city.

The Beroun Pottery Market takes place twice a year. Beroun's central Hus Square fills up with pottery stalls, wine peddlers, traditional Czech musicians, and more.

I couldn't believe how nearly every stall boasted pottery, but every piece of pottery was different. I'd gone intending on buying some Christmas presents for loved ones but was sort of overwhelmed by the offers. So I bought a couple of espresso cups and small things and planned to come back in the Spring again.

BW and I been through Beroun before, on the way to Konopiště Chateau, but we never stopped to enjoy the town itself. Like most Czech places, it had a lovely little center... and its fair share of graffiti in other spots. It was only 36 minutes by train from Prague.

Kava tasted extra good in my Beroun pottery cup this morning. Looking forward to returning for more pretty wares.

Linking up with Bonnie Rose for Travel Tuesday!

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Peanut butter beer and pop art in MN

Our second home, the Twin Cities of Minnesota, is an accomplished little metropolitan area that I would shower with kisses if I could. Some points of pride:

- Minneapolis and St. Paul have the largest urban sculpture garden in the nation
- Behind Chicago and New York, they hold the third-largest theater market
- No metropolitan area can boast as many Fortune-500 companies
- They have the only full-time chamber orchestra in the country

Etc. etc. These sister cities are an under-the-radar oasis of culture, sport and business in the American Midwest. But I'm going to keep purporting the idea that they're in some cold, remote no-man's land; they don't need to be an LA or an NYC where you pay through the nose for a haircut and can't get a seat at restaurant. 

On our summer trip back to the Twin Cities, we haunted many of our treasured spots, and on one particular night we hit two of the best, with Mom and Pop W...

 

AND

A whole crop of brewpubs and taprooms have sprouted across the Twin Cities, and the Dangerous Man microbrewery is our favorite. Yes, the neighborhood atmosphere is all aw-shucks cozy, but the selling point for us is their incredible Peanut Butter Porter. It's like a dark beer crossed with a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, a lethal combination for my pants size. BW waited in line for an hour one day to buy a growler to share at my sister's wedding, and he relays that it was totally worth it.

Next, we hit the sensational Walker Art Center, one of the top contemporary art museums in the nation. When BW and I started dating, he lived behind the Walker in the servant quarters in an incredible Neo-Mudéjar mansion. I called him one evening and he was headed to the museum, so we chatted while he tried to find my favorite pieces with clues. Si romantique! 

On this particular night, we swung by some of our old stand-bys and then saw the International Pop exhibit, which chronicled the global emergence of Pop art from the 1950s through the 1970s.

You often don't utterly value something until you can't access it anymore. We hope our Twin Cities, with all their art and beer and other wonders, know they're loved.

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Fish.

BW likes to fish. And when we go home in the summer, the men in his family travel to Wisconsin to spend a weekend on a big boat, fishing their hearts out.

Unfortunately, it was a bum year; these are the only fish they caught:

BW also tried fishing in North Dakota. Not even a bite.

Stupid fish.

In an effort to fill BW's fish-less life, I did a simple Google search: "Fishing in the Czech Republic".

I had no idea!

There are fisheries, guided tours, fly-fishing, youtube videos, stocked ponds, competitions, equipment for hire... there's even a Czech Anglers' Union. We don't have poles or tackle here, so the possibility of renting them for a day is a welcome find.

This article from expats.cz has a lot of info on where to go (though it's from 2011).

In February, we spent a few days in the Vysočina Region of the Czech Republic and ate at an excellent freshwater fish restaurant called Malostránský Pivovar, in the town of Velké Meziříčí.

Hopefully, thanks to Google, before long BW will be able to catch his own fish for dinner in the Czech Republic!

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How to find peace at the International Peace Garden

The International Peace Garden, situated on the US-Canadian border in the Turtle Mountains (a "mountain" in North Dakota being a generous description), is an apt place to unwind, reflect and practice mindfulness. Here's our guide on how:

1.Wind your way through the floral wonderland. We can't gush enough about the kaleidoscopic beds of colorful blossoms and buds. The park plants over 150,000 flowers each year and was established during the Great Depression to give jobs through the Civilian Conservation Corps. It's humbling to be enveloped by that much beauty.

2. Read sages of the ages in the Peace Chapel. The walls are inscribed with quotes about humanity, peace and justness. While it was admittedly dismaying to note the sore lack of female voices on the walls, it was lovely to read quotes by Gandhi, St. John, Eleanor Roosevelt and more in the soft glow of sun through gold-hued windows.

3. If you camp overnight, be wary of weather reports. We planted ourselves in a 1991 pop-up camper for two nights, and while the days were tolerably windy, at night we had gale-force storms that A) whipped the door open at 3 a.m. and let in a starving cloud of mosquitoes and B) were howling so loudly and forcefully we thought we might wake up in Oz the next morning.

4. Pay homage to the 9-11 Memorial. Wreckage from Ground Zero was brought to the IGP to commemorate those who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The design is meant to promote reflection, understanding and forgiveness. It's a simple but profoundly moving place.

5. Relax among the cacti. Aside from vast outdoor flowerbeds, the new Visitor's Center has an extensive, almost otherworldly-looking, indoor cactus garden. Being from the north, we haven't been privy to many of these prickly friends, so it was especially intriguing.

6. Take advantage of  harps and hand bells. The world-renowned International Music Camp, which hosted students from 76 countries last year, is stationed at the IPG. We got to take in a recital of world percussion, harps, hand bells, watercolors and acrylics. Let's not mention nodding off during it thanks to a couple of sleepless nights - see #2.

7. Take a spin through the North American Game Warden Museum, which I wrote about earlier! It houses information about wildlife, lots of confiscated hunting trophies, art, books, memorials and more.

That should do it. A few parting shots from our peace garden camping trip with the North Dakota parents...

Linking up with:

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