9 a.m. German time -- The Fourth of July is not a holiday in Germany, of course, although in France some people will be celebrating American Independence Day out of gratitude for the US help in two world wars and in recognition that if it weren't for the French, the US wouldn't have won two wars for independence against the British. One doesn't sense the strong pro-American feelings in Germany that one finds among the middle-aged and older people in France. In fact, contrary to what many Americans believe, many Germans are anti-American while the French in general like us. The French feel we have a shared history as comrades in arms, whereas even in our War for Independence, German mercenaries (Prussians) were mostly on the other side.
I'm wearing an Arizona T-shirt today, which provoked one German to ask me how the cattle in Arizona are doing. Somehow he felt that as a Phoenix resident I should have an intimate knowledge of cows. The German stereotype of Arizona is that it's a backward southern state full of cattle and rednecks. They're half wrong! They exaggerate the cattle part!
I walked around like a zombie all day yesterday as a result of a lack of sleep, but I slept like the dead during the night. I didn't even hear when my two roommates, a middle-aged Japanese man and a Bulgarian teenager, came home and got ready fro bed. I'm sure the kid rolled in a bit snockered and must have turned on the light and made a lot of noise. I'm in a four-person dormitory here with one of the beds free.
This morning I feel almost normal after four large mugs of coffee (it ended up being six) and an excellent German breakfast. I'm not a fan of German cooking, but German bread is the best in the world, and the cold cuts and cheese that go with breakfast are also excellent. The coffee is also very good, much better than Starbucks, which I suppose is setting the bar rather low.
I watched part of the team time trial, stage 2, of the Tour de France on TV yesterday, but I didn't see the final results. I'll glance at the morning newspaper for the race results before I head out sightseeing. More later.
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4:12 p.m. German Time -- I didn't do anything very exciting today. I walked, mostly along the Main River, which runs through the city. To a desert rat, it's refreshing to see a real river with real river traffic including barges, cruise boats, etc.
The weather was warmer today. According to my (probably inaccurate) pocket thermometer, the afternoon high almost reached 70 degrees, and there is not a cloud in the sky. Many people are still wearing sweaters and jackets, although my T-shirt felt fine today. In the park, most people were sitting in the sun, but I sought out the shade. I suppose that if you seldom see the sun, you feel that sitting in the sunshine is a good thing, which was fine with me, because I had my pick of shaded park benches.
I did not see today's Tour de France stage on TV, so I suppose I'll have to read the newspaper in the morning to find out who did what.
There are a lot of bicycle riders in Frankfurt, but they are mostly casual bicyclists. Almost no one wears a helmet. Although many of the streets have bike lanes, most people ignore them and ride on the sidewalk, which gets to be annoying if you are a pedestrian. (Damn those bicycle riders!) I've seen no one who seems to be a competitive cyclist or even willing to pedal hard enough to get the blood circulating. Even the few people in jerseys, cycling shorts, and cleats ride at a rather casual pace, and I've seen no one riding a pace line. Yesterday I saw two guys on time trial bikes dressed like racers out on the street mixing it up with car traffic while riding at perhaps 16 miles per hour. The normal cycling speed seems to be not much above a walking pace.
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