Anniversary day!
We arrived in Frankfurt for our Central Europe tour on Sunday, our anniversary. Checking into the hotel, to our surprise, the receptionist notified us that dinner was at 6pm on the second floor. Dinner? Our tour itinerary didn’t mention a dinner -- it clearly specifies every included meal.
To celebrate our anniversary, we were really looking forward to having dinner at a German restaurant that we found online. Oh well, at least we could save some money. Besides, skipping dinner with our tour group wouldn't give a good first impression.
After meeting the tour guide, we sat down at our table for six. A quiet father and son duo sat across from us, while a very talkative pair of older Asian women from London sat at the other end of the table. They took an interest in chatting up Alexandra, who tried her best to be cordial and make the table more comfortable. The father and son were having none of it. They may as well have been two big ice blocks melting in their chairs. It was excruciating – the complete opposite of what I was looking forward to on our anniversary. Beer and pork knuckle!
As I looked at the depressing bread roll and tiny packaged butter on the table, the tour guide approached us. “Are you Michael and Alexandra?”
“Yes.”
“There’s been a mistake. You guys are on the Central Europe tour, right? This is the Highlights of Germany tour. I’m sorry, dinner actually isn’t included for you tonight.”
Alexandra says she’s never seen me spring up from a chair as quickly as I did in that moment.
“Oh no worries! We had dinner plans... For our anniversary, yeah! So this all works out!” I may have toppled a few chairs or so as I exited my seat. I dunno, I just remember being very excited.
As we said our goodbyes and made our way (or, rushed) out of the restaurant, the manager approached us. “I overheard it’s your anniversary! How about a glass of champagne on the house? There’s a bar downstairs – I’ll arrange it!”
Whoa, what just happened?!
We arrived at the bar, made eye contact with the bartender, who was pouring two glasses of champagne... “Please have a seat, anywhere!” We sat at a corner table, and he served us two of the best glasses of champagne I've ever had (I was so ecstatic at that point, I would've been happy with half soda water half Franzia!).
We looked at each other, totally surprised by the turn of events. A narrow escape from the no-fun-zone to free champagne, then our first food experience in Germany to look forward to… Life threw us a major bone (a braised pork bone, to be exact). So we took a selfie:
I had been looking forward to our first German dinner experience for several years. Alexandra ordered a braised pork knuckle, and I grilled spare ribs. Both were AWESOME, and paired perfectly with some local brews served in big glasses:
I can’t believe it’s been a year… It’s been an amazing year – I never would’ve guessed a year ago that we’d be on this trip right now. We’ve come a long way, and I’m excited about how far we’ll go in the next year.
On deck, Berlin and Poland...