Home again!

The next morning dawned… well, neither bright nor early. In fact, it dawned a good hour after our alarm went off. Granted, this isn’t saying much in Germany in late December, but still. We pried ourselves out of bed and prepared for our flight out.

Then the cockups began. Nothing major, but a series of small ones starting with breakfast. The hotel, which was otherwise very good and very reasonable, had a breakfast buffet which we recalled being a bit on the pricy side, but not too bad. To put things into perspective: you can get a perfectly reasonable and tasty breakfast at any Imbiss (lunch counter) or Bäkerei (bakery) for about five euros. The hotel in München charged fifteen euros for the two of us, so about seven fifty. The one here was fifteen euros as well, but we had a train and a plane to catch, so we opted for the buffet.

It was a delicious buffet, but then we went to pay and realized this one was fifteen euros per person- not total. Good food, but still a bit much to spend on coffee, croissants, hard boiled eggs, cold cuts, etc. Whatever, we knew we were going to be on a plane all day, so a proper meal was in order and we weren’t rushed. Call it a win.

Then we tuckered off to the train, made a few wrong turns in the labyrinthine station, and found the local train to the airport and the trouble really began. First there were not ticket machines on the platform, so I watched the bags and Amy ran off to find one. Naturally, the escalator to the platform with the machines one went one way, so she had to find the machines, find the stairs down at the other end of the platform and come down to tell me that the machine hadn’t taken her credit card.

OK, no big deal, this was why we had extra time. I had a card that we’d bought our tickets to München on, so I knew that one worked and I ran off to find the machines, leaving Amy with the bags. Except I’m paranoid when I travel, so I lugged my backpack along, with my messenger bag slung over it. Up the escalator, find the ticket machines, and… it didn’t work. Tried another one- same thing. I clicked through the screen to find the accepted payment methods (thank god I speak German!) and found that they take a) charge cards (which I didn’t have); b) Deutsche Bahn cards (which I also didn’t have) and c) cash (which I also didn’t have). So off I went to find a Geldautomat (ATM).

I found that, got the smallest amount I could (20 euros), contemplated asking at the info booth next to the Geldautomat about using credit cards on the ticketing machines, discarded that idea, and rant back to the machine. No luck- it wouldn’t take my money. The damn machine cut off at 10 euro bills, and accepted nothing larger.

So, if the ATM only gives out 20s and greater, and the ticket machine only takes 10s and smaller, then there must be a change machine somewhere, right? Wrong. I ran back to the info desk to find it empty. No bell, no button, nothing. And no jacket slung over a chair or coffee cup indicating they’d be back. I ran upstairs to the main level to find… something.

Since this wasn’t an international station, there was no change office, and whle there were plenty of Geldautomate, there were no staffed banks. Then, there! A Bäkerei! They always have cheap stuff! I bought a pretzel (I’m a sucker for good pretzels), got my 19.20 in change, and ran back downstairs, found the ticket machine, bought our tickets, ran to the other end of the platform, took the stairs down, and ran to Amy. Our train pulled up, we got on, and the train pulled out. Made it!

Naturally, they never checked out tickets, and the pretzel was the worst pretzel I’ve ever eaten in Germany, but it was worth a bit of sweat.

And that’s really about all. We found our outgoing airline (Lufthansa, running a flight for United), breezed through security, and got on the plane. We had a two-hour stopover in Heathrow London where we had to go through security again (since now we were going to America, and that meant heightened security because terrorists were totally going to blow up any plane going to America. They took our duty-free sodas, the bastards!), and found a pub for fish and chips and a pint of Hobgoblin. Then some browsing in the duty-free shops (nice whiskey selection in one and I got to compare a bunch of tablets in another) then back on the plane to SFO.

I’d loaned my car to my brother for the duration of the trip, so now we had a pickup waiting for us- best idea ever! He ran us home, first Amy, then I dropped my brother and drove myself the last 20 minutes of our ten-day, 17,000 mile trip.

Frankfurt bei Nacht

Frankfurt at night is another world from the cheerful and brightly lit Christmas markets of München or the medieval cobblestone streets of Freiburg. It’s a major metropolis, full of tourists and locals, alcoholics, bums, urban professionals, taxis, cops, cars, everything you’d expect in San Francisco or Oakland or, for that matter, New York, Miami, Chicago, Paris, Madrid, Cairo, or Shanghai.

It was a Tuesday night, and most business had wrapped up, people had eaten dinner and returned to the streets for whatever they were after. We’d eaten leftover pizza from lunch on the train, so we weren’t particularly hungry, and walked quickly through the dirty streets in the industrial quarter toward the city’s financial center and the Occupy camp. The camp was still there, but not much was going on, so we kept walking. We passed by a dance club with a line out the door and down the block, all young people dressed in shiny clothes with greased hair and makeup. By our standards, they were very young for the club crowed- maybe 18 or 19, rather than the early- to mid-twenties we see here. The effect of a lower drinking age.

 

The top of one of the financial towers was lit by a yellow beacon, and in the mist it was just barely short of terrifying. Frankfurt.

We continued on to the Altstad (old town), which was reasonably well lit, but still the middle of the night. This was the same place we found the Weinachtsmarkt last week, but now it was empty- a strange discontinuity. It was deserted as we walked past the Rathaus, some statues, then crossed over to a small (relatively speaking) church. This church had a huge tree festooned with lights, and a row of very medieval looking houses- tall, narrow, all attached to each other.

Much like Freiburg, Frankfurt was bombed to bits during the War, but while Freiburg took pains to recreate the older sections of the city as accurately as possible, Frankfurt still has a new smell to it (metaphorically- we still found the that warm stink of the German sewers). The houses, while old fashioned, don’t have that layer of grime that you’d expect after half a millennium or more. So: charming, but not really all that interesting.

The Rathaus has a covered bridge going to another building. Frankfurt.

The buildings by the church were old fashioned, but not actually all that old. Frankfurt.

The church was pretty, but not as impressive as the Freiburger Münster (or, for that matter, the Frankfurter Dom). It did have a nice Christmas tree, though. Frankfurt.

We walked by the “old” houses on the left, toward the Dom (cathedral) behind them. We passed some construction boarded off with plywood on the way, and noticed some well drawn Roman soldier cartoons graffitied on the barrier. They were obvious homages to the Asterix comics and other comics of that topic which are popular here, but we weren’t sure why they were there.

Then we found an overlook to the Dom, and some very new construction laid down in front of it- just some foundations, nothing more. Weirdly, though, there was a permanent looking walkway across it, and a staircase down into it. We went down, and the wall were all stone walls- as if someone was adding to the Dom.

There was a ticketing booth that was just closing down for the night. I went to ask what we were standing in, but the window closed before I got there. There was a small theater behind it, so I assume the ticketing window was for that, and not for whatever was happening with the walls- nobody seemed to care that we were there. Then Amy found the plaques.

I read them by the light of my cell phone, and realized that what we were standing in was not a new build, but an old build. Several old builds, actually- very old builds. There were three things there: a granary from the 17^th century, a monastery from the 13^th century and a Roman bathhouse from the 7^th century! They had all been built on top of each other, each using the ruins of the last one to build off. The different wall heights (about 30, 100 and 150 cm) indicated which walls were from which period. It was a bit of a tangle, and I wasn’t able to make out which was which for sure, but it was definitely impressive. Then we walked around the cathedral.

The Frankfurter Dorm is clearly a modern building, built in the image of the old one. It’s definitely Gothic architecture, but the sandstone is so new that it’s still light pink (instead of the black and gray of the Münster), and it has modern murals all around it and on the doors. It’s a bit incongruous at first, but actually a very nice touch. It’s as if the building was clearly meant to be a rebuild of the old building, but was not trying to wipe away the destruction of the old one. Rather, this one seeks to incorporate contemporary tastes and other bits of local history with its murals. Quite well done, but too dark to get any photos of.

The spire on the Dom, from the front, at night. It's impressive, but I don't think it's quite as large as the Münster in Freiburg. Also, the Münster is surrounded by a Platz, and then two-store medieval buildings, so it's much more imposing than the Dom which has no Platz and then has taller buildings. But the Dom is lit internally at night, which is very cool. Frankfurt.

Loads more images of Frankfurt, and Germany in general, on Amy's flickr.

We completed our circuit and I put my tired foot down and said we’re going back to the hotel. Amy had burned off enough energy that she was OK with that by then, and we marched back, passing the now-familiar cell phone, luggage and sex shops on the way. We also passed a number of sex workers and their pimps, one of which was loudly accosting some passing gentlemen with his wares. We walked by quickly and escaped without too much attention.

Back at the hotel, I showered, crawled in bed and passed out. Amy was still up for a bit checking email, and then showered too. I was drifting in and out of sleep, but remember hearing the blow drier.

I heard the blow drier for a long, long time. Then there was another person in the room, talking about the blow drier. Then in and out and then gone for a long time, and then back, and all the time the blow drier was howling away in the bathroom at top volume. It actually got remarkable warm in the room. Finally, it shut up and I passed out completely.

The next morning Amy explained to me what happened. The blow drier in the particular hotel was permanently wired into the wall so it can’t be stolen. In all, not a bad idea at all, unless the switch breaks and it gets stuck on “on.” And then doesn’t turn off, and can’t be unplugged.

Of course you can’t just clip the wires, because the power is still on. One could just kill power to the room (both the hotels we stayed in had key card slots near the door that you stuck your key card in to turn on the power- take the card out, and the room has no power), but then it would be pitch black in there. So the handyman finally got the howling, hot blow drier operated out of the wall somehow, and left us in peace. Ah, sleep!