For fear of this turning into a travel–or a selfie–blog, I thought I’d post about getting back to life in Frankfurt.

Yesterday’s vocabulary words from German class:

Streik – strike
Umleitung – alternative route
Fahrplan – timetable
fällt aus – to be canceled
Haltestelle – station
Ersatzverbindung – backup line
Wartezeit – waiting time
einen Zug verpassen – to miss the train
Stau – traffic jam
im Stau stehen – to be caught up in a traffic jam
Umleitungsstraße – detour

Maybe you notice a theme.

I didn’t make it to class because of yesterday’s train strike (and apparently everyone else who made it was also affected).

I ran into a colleague on the way in to work and she told me there was a strike planned starting in the afternoon, going through the night. She said the trains wouldn’t be running on the way home. She told me this when we were already on the train in.

Strikes are so 1920s to me. I just don’t get them.

I was able to get a ride home from work yesterday and to work today, but it was such a weird experience to not know exactly what was going on.

It made me realize that I follow the news, but I follow the wrong news. I read the NY Times, listen to the BBC and NPR, but I don’t follow Frankfurt news. This prompted me to look for a local news source. I found a couple of sites and an app in English. And although I get the feeling I’m not getting all of the news, this will work for now.

I skimmed the headlines: more strikes, Germany getting ready for Ebola, politics, the economy…maybe I don’t want the local news after all.