The house in Frankfurt was a sort of townhome, for lack of a better word – in a community of similar structures. The first level was a garage, the second the main living space with the kitchen-dining room-living room areas. On the third floor were three bedrooms, one of which was used as an office (where we downloaded our first set of photos to free up space on Lisa’s memory card). This served as one guest room, if I remember correctly, and is where Anke and Volkmar stayed. Lisa and I had the fourth floor/attic room, complete with sloped ceilings, and I want to say it had skylights but that could totally be my imagination. This house also had the nifty outdoor shutters.
After another traditional breakfast of hard-boiled eggs, breads and Nutella (!), Anke and Volkmar took us to Heidelberg, 94 km and about an hour south of Frankfurt. Heidelberg is on the Neckar River, and as we walked along said river, I saw the European headquarters of the company my mom works for. Upon my return, I told her she needed to put in for a transfer, because the office featured a view across the river of the Heidelberger Schloss, which is set off from town on the Königstuhl hill in the Odenwald Mountains. (Did I know that name until just now when I looked on Wikipedia? No, I did not.) We headed over to the castle and took the guided tour. I especially enjoyed the wine cellar. Also noteworthy is the Deutsches Apotheken Museum (German Museum of Pharmacy) located on the grounds. This is noteworthy because my dad is a pharmacist. I probably wouldn’t have checked it out otherwise, but it was actually kind of neat. (Don’t tell Dad I said so.)
Following the castle tour, we went to lunch at the Palmbräu Gasse. I wish I could tell you what I ate there, but I actually have no idea. I only know that’s where we went because I saved the coaster. We also have a picture of me and Lisa and Anke there, but I don’t think I would have been able to identify the restaurant from that alone. The Palmbräu Gasse is located on the main street (Hauptstraße) of Heidelberg, right near a shopping district, which was at the time hosting their Christmas Market Weihnachtsmarkt. So we went into some of the shops and checked out the Weihnachtsmarkt and it was about this time that I began to regret my choice of footwear.
You see, because we were traveling the Rick Steves way, which is, say, minimalistic, I had two pairs of shoes with me (well, three if you count my flip flops, which I don’t, since they were shower shoes for the hostel that we’ll get to later) – a pair of loafers with probably a 2.5-inch heel and a pair of wellies. Both clearance, the loafers one of my favorite pairs of shoes ever and, I thought, comfortable enough to walk long distances in. The wellies were a more recent clearance purchase that I had not yet tried out. You see where this is going. Ahh, hindsight. Anyway, I was wearing the loafers and my feet began to ache.
No big deal, though, because we were headed back to Frankfurt. The moon was beginning to rise over the bridge in Heidelberg and we stopped to snap a few pics, but only a few, because it was getting quite cold.
I was going to say we took the autobahn to Frankfurt but then I realized I used that for Day 2. It’s entirely possible that we took the same highway twice; but I think Day 3 is the one for which I have photographic evidence.
Once back in Frankfurt, we headed to the nearby subway (?) station with Gerhard and Lukas to head downtown, where the Frankfurter Weihnachtsmarkt was being held. Thus marked our introduction to gluhwein, the hot spiced red wine that is a staple of the Christmas markets. There was this other food item that someone ordered for me/us, and it was bread with an herbed-lard spread (I think – it was like Crisco with bacon droppings; the bacon droppings were good, the rest made me want to vomit). I nibbled around the edge of the bread; I didn’t want to offend anyone by not eating it, but I really couldn’t manage much.
After the gluhwein and the aborted lardbread, Lisa and Lukas and I rode the carousel. (Good thing I didn’t eat the bread.) I have nothing to say about this other than it was fun.
For dinner, Gerhard took us to Lorsbacher Thal “cider restaurant.” I know they are a cider restaurant because that’s what it says on their website, but also because I have in my notes that we had apfelwein there. I believe in addition to the apfelwein I had a main dish featuring the ever-present hard-boiled eggs in some kind of dill sauce. Whatever it was, it was quite good.
We headed back to the house then, and Anke and Volkmar headed home.
We then set off to Cologne, approximately 185 km and almost two hours from Tecklenburg. On the way, Anke pulled out some divine lebkuchen. Upon arrival in Cologne, we set out for the Cathedral, known in German as the Kölner Dom (or, wikipedia tells me, 
We then proceeded up the cathedral's 509 stairs to the viewing platform. These stairs are similar to the stairs going up to the Statue of Liberty's head, and both made me slightly nauseous. As it turns out, I don't do well with spiral staircases in dark and cramped quarters. We took lots of pictures, including pictures of the Christmas Market in the square below the cathedral and pictures of the Rhine (Rhein?) River. Then it was back down to street level, where I enjoyed a bratwurst. Yummy!
We drove into the city. It was a nice day, partly cloudy and cool, with a few sprinkles in the area. We parked at a garage somewhere near the VanGogh Museum, because Lisa is cultured and likes museums like that. I stopped at an ATM to withdraw euros and lost five years of my life when the ATM nearly ate my card. It returned it with a crimp in the side, however, and I did not have to freak out entirely. Before heading to the museum, we had lunch in a local pancake house, complete with cats walking around the restaurant. We walked along canals and saw houseboats and tulips and clogs that I was tempted to buy but resisted. The museum was actually really cool; it traces Van Gogh's life chronologically through paintings, but by the third floor, I was about done in by the jet lag. When we left, we adventurously took a different route back to the parking deck and promptly got lost in a local park.
Once we reached the car, Anke drove us back to her house in Ibbenbüren, Germany, which is 219 km and about two hours west of Amsterdam. I marked the border crossing into Germany by drooling on myself while sleeping, or some such similar activity. At Anke's house, we met her husband, Volkmar, and their dog, Buffy. Anke and Volkmar lived in the left half of the house, and Anke's parents lived in the right half, which was "next door" because it had a separate entrance. Anke insisted that we call home to let our parents know we had arrived safely. We got a tour of their house, which had very modern bathrooms and showers (which we used judiciously but which I am not sure were used very often otherwise) and these cool outdoor shutters which are controlled from the inside and block every single bit of light from outside. Fabulous for sleeping. 
Jim Rutherford has replaced Uncle Drayton at the top of my most-hated sports GMs list (of two).