So let’s just say, my cousin and I got a late start. We weren’t the usual tourists, up and at ‘em at 8am. Let’s say we could’ve just had lunch at home. Maybe a linner.
But but but, it turned out to be a good thing. Because just as we got off the train in Frankfurt and started walking into the city, we walked straight into a GIANT PARADE. Which apparently only happens every 2 years. Talk about good timing.
So this parade was a ‘respect all the immigrants who come to Germany’ parade. Which meant that everybody dressed up in their national costumes and had some sort of dance. Also, there were football players and cheerleaders, which I think was supposed to symbolize American immigrants. The football players didn’t dance. Because Americans are too cool for in-the-street dancing. No worries though, I definitely saw enough dancing what with the belly-dancers (not sure what country they were from) and the booty-shaking (Kenyan, I think) and the oh-so-adorable Russian dancers. Who were almost as adorable as their very enthusiastic dance coordinator, a cute, slightly-pudgy man in his 40s. Or 50s.
We spectated for about an hour and a half, but then the call of the ADC struck and there was nothing I could do. That’s right kids, altitude driven compulsion hit again, and off we were to the tallest thing we could find in Frankfurt. That turned out to be the Mainz Tower, which is the tallest skyscraper (I think?) except for the Commerzbank tower. I mean, this is how office buildings should really make their money – just let up tourists on weekends for 5 euros a piece, and see how much money they make.
The view was definitely spectacular, albeit a bit overcast.
After countless photo ops (thank you Maria!), we finally descended into the city proper. Now I admit, by then I was a bit of a nag, because I could see that it was already pretty late in the afternoon and we hadn’t hit any museums yet. Now, since I shelled out those 9 euros for a Museum Card (which I strongly recommend if you plan on visiting more than 2 museums ... which I didn't, oops), I wanted to get my money’s worth. Thankfully, for our convenience, all the museums were situated more or less in a straight line on a street bordering the beautiful Mainz river. Unfortunately, we were ultimately quite exhausted from all the walking, so we only managed to visit 2 museums, meaning it actually would’ve been cheaper not to get the museum card. Gah, the lost savings! Note to self: museums in Germany are very, VERY cheap (3 euros on average), so plan accordingly.
The first museum was called something about a Collection of Objects or something. I only went there because on the brochure, they showed this whole cool collection of chairs, so I thought that’s what the museum would be about – the evolution of different objects through time.
That turned out to be 1 tiny room in the museum.
The rest was furniture, true, but all random. To stifle my disappointment, I took pictures with lots of cabinets, and tried to touch everything despite the fact that there were signs indicating that I was not to do so.
But I’m a rebel, so whatcha gonna do now, huh?
The other museum was the architecture museum, which was definitely worth the visit and was totally great (well, except for that awkward moment where we totally walked in on an architecture class in session and everybody stopped talking while we weaved our way between the chairs to the exit … oh, and then we couldn’t figure out how to open the door. Talk about awkward-turtle moments).
But back to the museum – it was full of tiny models of famous German buildings and competition models and models of unbuilt stuff and also models of ideas (like a utopian society, or a self-sufficient community). We learned tons of valuable facts. Like the fact that Hitler looooooooooooved models and sometimes had 1:1 models built for projects. That’s right.
Let me build a building that I will later build again.
Talk about revitalizing the economy.
After making the executive albeit sad decision not to visit any more museums that day (ah, the savings!), we instead took a nice and relaxing stroll beside the river. I really have to praise the Frankfurt waterfront – it is absolutely wonderfully developed and I could see myself living in Frankfurt and taking walks there.
We did have to fend off some boat captains after they tried to Shanghai us onto their ships so we could take photos with them.
But that’s more of an upside, I think.
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