July 2, 2009

We have begun the next phase of our journey as we arrived in Germany this morning. We managed to get a few hours of sleep on the overnight flight from Ethiopia although we certainly didn’t feel rested. We rented a van at the airport and managed to find our way to Sasha and Elvira’s house (Sasha is a cousin of Richard's father) here in Frankfurt. They have welcomed us very warmly despite their lack of English. My rusty German is certainly getting a work out! However, they do have one son who is studying Engineering and who is quite proficient in English so he helps us out when the language barrier gets too overwhelming.

The biggest culture shock has been the abundance of marvelous food around us! Elvira seems to get great joy out of feeding our boys and she has been doing that continuously since we arrived. And the boys have obliged by eating more than I’ve ever witnessed them eat before. Simple things such as sliced meats and cheese to make sandwiches are such a special thing now. We will need to make sure that the weight that some family members lost in the past two months isn’t gained back in the next two days!

We spent the afternoon sightseeing in Frankfurt. Sasha and Elvira’s house is located a block away from the U-Bahn so we were able to use public transportation. There is not a lot of history in Frankfurt since they entire city was completely bombed in WW II and has had to be rebuilt. However, we enjoyed doing some shopping and checking out the few historical buildings that remain. In the evening Elvira took us to a nearby mall where they were showing all sorts of Ferrari’s at some sort of special show.

Tonight I will finally sleep well again since the malaria medication is now entirely out of my system. After reading that the possible side effects that include insomnia and anxiety I realized that my sleep issues and feelings of panic started in Arber Mench when I began taking malaria pills. Now that I have discontinued for the past few days, I’m feeling like a new person!