Gertrude Herdle Letter 1921

              Hotel de Hollande,
Rheinstrasse, 77. Mainz, Germany
July 22, 1921

My dear ones,

This day has brought us far on our way- to a new country and a new feeling of independence, for we entered Germany this morning, left Wilma and Dexter at Heidelberg, crossed over another frontier into the district of the Rhineland occupied by the French, and finally arrived at Mainz without painful adventures- all since 10:35 this morning.

At Kehl this morning our passports were visaed and stamped by both French and German officials (It seemed like too much rubbing it in to have a Frenchman stationed on a French boundary as far east of Avicourt as Kehl) and our baggage examined.  The German customs officer tried to make a fuss about my Kodak, but I grew quite eloquent ^ in German^ about how long I had had it and where it had been purchased.  He was dear, and said that he always believed Americans.

This was all after I had performed the eventful act of crossing the Rhine, which was as broad as the Genesee and not half so pretty.

At Kehl we had dinner in the Bahnhof, a good, solid, and substantial meal of goulache (??) potatoes, spinach, rolls, butter, and kuchen, for 12 marks or about $.18.  That is what the rate of exchange is doing in Germany, and it is really pitiable to me.  Our money is worth almost twenty times theirs