Friday in Frankfurt ...

Manchmal wird Ashley ein wenig dumm danach gerade ein Bier.

No...there is nothing wrong with your computer or our blog...

We went on a wonderful tour of Frankfurt on Friday afternoon. A local historian showed us sites like this - the Jewish memorial cemetary. It stands where the old Jewish ghettos once stood.

This is the entrance to the cemetary.

There were 25,000 Jews that lived in Frankfurt - all but 900 were killed during the Holocaust. This wall contains the names of those who passed. Each person has a name plate that includes his or her name, birth date, death date, and place of execution. According to our guide, Jewish custom was to write prayers down on paper. Family members and friends would place their prayers under rocks (found in front of the monument) to ensure their prayers did not blow away. While this practice was still popular, those with bigger rocks were "more important" - there were more prayers on their respective name plate. Today, local Rabi come by weekly and replace fallen rocks to symbolize all lost lives are important.

This is a view of the Mein River.

Right across the street from the river are several reconstructed buildings (all but a few buildings were destroyed during WWII).
We sat at this cafe and had coffee.
Can you guess how old these buildings are??? Actually, they are only about 20 years old!

The person on the left is Margarete Imhof, the local arrangements chair and current President of ILA; she put the conference together. The person to the right is Mekthied (spelling is probably inaccurate); he plays the organ for the St. Bartholome (Bartholomew) Cathedral.

We were lucky to receive a private tour of the Cathedral. Mekthied explained the symbolism of the statues and the history of the church (he wrote his MA Thesis on this subject). Quite a treat!

After the tour, we were honored with an organ concert. He played a mix of songs from hymns to classics like Somewhere Over the Rainbow. The organ has 9,000 pipes and 151 stops!!! Seeing Mekthied play it was mezmorizing. Ashley took a video which we won't be able to post until we get home...the wait will be worth it.

We're off to the Pyrenees to see the last large mountain stage of the Tour. We may not post for a few days (uncertain of Internet accessibility) but be on the lookout for some specialty posts from Germany (e.g., a fashion post, an "interesting sites" post) as well as posts from the Tour.