Never have we slept so well after a flight, but after burning the midnight oil, we slept soundly for seemingly days, only waking after 7:00. A slow traditional breakfast of Brötchen (rolls) that was delivered to Klaus and Stephanie’s front door while not taken in bed, were enjoyed in ways only available to those in Germany. This extraordinary indulgence was followed by some blogging duties that took us till nearly 11:00 before we got out. We emerged from the subway here at Hauptwache and started our long walk across Zeil on the way to lunch.

With me having just been in Germany a mere eight weeks ago, I’m finding things all too familiar, and that is hampering my ability to take photos. It seems that it was all just photographed yesterday. Still, this is now Caroline’s return home, so I’ll endeavor to take advantage of the nice weather and capture something or other so the narrative regarding this adventure will have some visual clues to where it is we are exploring these days.

We are walking up Bergerstrasse in order to make time aside from family and various obligations to find some spontaneity while immersing ourselves in the small details that make up the city. Graffiti, posters, and stickers are some of the quickest ways to drill into the zeitgeist of the places we visit, and when the cultural scribblings to me are provocative or sexually fetishized, they are quick to grab my attention, such as the submissive mantis-human, the casual use of the word “Fuck” on a political poster, and the reference to Fridays For Future movement.

Here, we pass a rose garden on Im Prüfling. It’s a relatively long walk to our lunch, but that’s okay, as it’s such a beautiful late summer day.

Along the way, we stopped at a shop that Klaus recommended to Caroline as a good source of rhubarb soda, and while there she also found a rhubarb juice she picked up. Sadly, it is the wrong time of year for her to buy fresh rhubarb danishes because, as you might glean by now, Caroline loves rhubarb, known as rhabarber in German.

By the way, behind Caroline is a place called Döneria, where we shared lunch. Maybe you can tell from the name of the business that we were having a Döner, a wonderful, incredibly yummy Döner. While I’ve said it before, it bears repeating: America doesn’t do Döner except for that place in New York City where we once found it. The closest America gets is with their yucky gyros, but that doesn’t really come all that close.

From our midday meal, we jumped on the train for a quick ride to Römer for another visit with my mother-in-law.

Having collected Caroline’s mother, we moseyed over to the banks of the Main River and grabbed a free park bench while I went to buy the ladies an ice cream and the three of us coffees.

While this is the smile of a happy mom and someone who dearly loves her family, Jutta has dementia, and sometimes it shows through more so than other times. Later in the day when talking with her other daughter, Stephanie, Jutta conveyed what a nice time she had this afternoon with me while Caroline was off with a friend of hers. My mother-in-law’s failing memory was confusing that we’d be meeting with Caroline’s friend on Friday and that the three of us were, in fact, together this afternoon.

There’s obviously a tragedy at work here when you must take into account that much of what we’ll share with her over these few weeks of vacation in Frankfurt will be lost, but during our visits, she couldn’t be happier, and she enthusiastically shares with us how much she loves us being here.

Making plans to enjoy the little precious time we have left becomes all the more important as nobody knows when she’ll either not even recognize us or she might grow angry due to imagined neglect. Right now, her certainty about the past is strong, and she talks with authority about those days, but the last few days and even an hour ago are lost in the haze of dementia. Strangely enough, she can even talk about her awareness of falling into this ailment that afflicts the elderly from her previous knowledge of how it works, but that doesn’t allow things to break through regarding how it might be affecting her at any particular moment.

And so this is where we sat for the next three hours, watching people come and go along with the boats ferrying people up and down the river who were out for a short cruise and a glass of beer or maybe wine.

Maybe Caroline and I should have had our own Döner earlier, as I was getting hungry by the time we brought Jutta back to her room. Trying to figure out where to eat wasn’t easy, though it should have been, as Caroline is seriously flexible compared to me. She wasn’t ready for more Grüne Soße (Green Sauce), and I wasn’t ready for more carbs, so we settled on a place I’d visited on my previous trip over in the Bahnhofsviertal (main train station quarter).

More Turkish food sounded great to me, and the mixed grill plate for two was perfect. We are at Kebab Han on Münchenerstrasse, and while I just lamented more carbs, the majority of the fries remained after we finished the lamb, chicken, and beef extravaganza.

Time for some people watching at a trendy bar. Helium on Bleidenstrasse was just the place. Caroline got set up with some of her favorite paint thinner better known as an Old Fashioned, only this one was outfitted as a Dirty Bastard version. I brought out the trusty computer to finish yesterday’s blog post and prepare today’s photos.

So, not a lot of photos to share and not a lot of moments to convey, but our time with family is taking precedence during these early days in Germany. Soon, we’ll be on some other journeys that involve tourism that I’ll be happy to snap off hundreds of photos of exotic sights to tax my writing and time management skills in order to bring you into our three-week adventure away from home.