Some practical tips that have been handed down by other Western European Studies librarians
- Helene Baumann discovered the best hotel: Burgmühle, Gelnhausen (35-40 minutes to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, then S-Bahn to the fair (Station “Messe”), it is much cheaper than Frankfurt hotels; your transportation is covered by your book fair ticket
- We went to the restaurant Wagner in Frankfurt http://www.apfelwein-wagner.com/ – the restaurant seats 550 guests…great for people watching….great for watching plates of food walk by…they have posted their recipe for the Green Sauce here: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2808090,00.html
- Bring your own/favorite brand of artificial sweetener..(need I say more?)
- You don’t get water with the meal automatically. If you want regular mineral water with carbonation, just ask for “Wasser” or “Sprudel”, if you want less Kohlensäure/carbonation, ask for “Stilles Wasser”…
- Bring or buy small post it notes to mark items of interest in the fair catalog…
- Bring a backpack instead of a shoulder bag
- Representatives at the booths speak German, English and French as a matter of course. The International booths offer more languages. Your challenge is to remember which language you are speaking in and not to switch languages mid-sentence:)
- Some restaurants will give you the price of the "food only" on the menu and they will assume that you know about the additional 19% Mehrwertstauer (tax) (in this scenario, the food looks cheaper than it actually is, and you will be surprised by the additional charge on your bill). Some restaurants include the Mehrwertsteuer in the price quoted for the item on the menu – you will usually find a note at the bottom of the menu that says (inclusive Mehrwertsteuer)…In either case you should leave an additional tip. Some people round up to the next Euro, if you want to be nice, give 5 – 10 % tip…
- Those of us with teenage daughters are well trained to observe what is “hot”. Sarah How discovered “wrist warmers”, we also got long t-shirts at H&M, Moser-Roth chocolates (not generally known, but very good and not as pricey as the global brands..) at Aldi; and we none of us liked the look of skintight jeans tucked in boots J; Longchamps bags are much cheaper than in the US…and the new Dior perfume that debuts at the airport Duty Free shop each year is called Escale à Portofino
- WESSies, send me your pictures of all the great side trips and adventures you had, ...cafes, sculpture gardens, museums, book shops, day trips all over Europe…..and I will add them to the site
- Thank you to Anna Shparberg for sharing her Gorbachev images
- A special thank you to Beau Case for organizing events for librarians at the fair!!
