FRIDAY FRANKFURT 740PM

Well, if yesterday was smooth, today was extra crunchy. We had a sleep set back being that we woke up at 230am wide awake and could not get back to sleep until what probably was about 6am. We were dead to the world until the phone rang at 945am when they called us from downstairs to find out if we planned to eat breakfast. (Included with our hotel.)

Yes, I said groggily as we threw on clothes and smoothed our hair down and then staggered downstairs where the breakfast lady gave us a disapproving glare and pointed at the hours for breakfast service. Even though I was still more asleep than awake and not remotely hungry I ate and we thanked everybody for letting us come down so late and then ran upstairs to start our day already totally behind.

We intended to go to Mainz to see hero of the last millenium Johannes Gutenberg museum. But there was some snafu with the SBahn. It was running late and this is the same one that goes to the airport and there were hysterical people with luggage stampeding about. (Aside: WTF is it with Frankfurt and school children? Do they ever have to go to school? There are giant roving packs of them, all ages, everywhere, esp. the train stations. The museums are largely empty except for Pam, Bob and dozens of loud, squirrely school children.)

After standing around the platform for about 20 minutes we decided to alter the plan and exit the station and visit the Goethe museum which ended up being harder to find than it should have been what with the Frankfurters apparent aversion to good signage. Come on, Goethe was a rock star in his day. Doesn't his museum deserve a bunch of big signs? I get the feeling that Frankfurt is totally incovenienced by its rich history. Old stuff seems begrudgingly preserved while all the modern commerce stuff is built up all around.

By the time we were done with Goethe it was too late to go to Mainz so armed with our super expensive deluxe public transportation day pass we headed back to the Dom/Römer main drag. Before we got there Bob saw some sign about Jazz and turns out the Kloister musuem was hosting a Jazz in Frankfurt exhibit which was very cool with tons of earphones stations and movie clips and photos. (And brochures for live jazz tonight ... I must be building a hell of a karmic bank right now.)

From there we visited the Struwelpeter Museum. Struwelpeter is a very famous character in German children's literature. The stories are sick and twisted and obviously made a distinct impact on many children, not just me. There were parodies and turns out Mark Twain lived in Germany for a year and did an English translation.
Struwelpeter was this kid who ignored his personal hygeine and birds came to live in his hair and his nails grew to long twisted prongs. In another story, a girl isn't supposed to play with matches and she does and lights on fire and burns to ashes and the cats cry over her remains. In another story, a kid isn't supposed to suck his thumb and he does and some guy with giant scissors comes and cuts his thumbs off. Neat for children, eh?

From there we went back across the Main to this Bible musuem that Bob read about that we thought would make a good story, and it was weird but not as weird as I expected. I'm not sure what their goal is as it seemed old Testament centric. You could sit in some tent and feel Sahara sand and try grinding wheat to see how hard that is. I've ground acorns, that doesn't impress me. There was also some boat supposedly a replica of a boat found in some ancient place and dating back to Jesus times. And there are Bibles and scrolls. One scroll was labeled "Esther Rolle" and I said to Bob, "wasn't she an actress?" There was a Gutenberg printing press which actually worked and made up for missing out on Mainz. There was a class of kids about 8 years old going completely apeshit so we got out of there pretty quick.

We found a great place for dinner. More apple wine and plates of wursts and stuff. Remember when I was a vegetarian? What happened? I think I'd eat yak if I was hungry enough and it looked good.

It's raining now. (Shouldn't it be snowing?) We're going back to the Christmas market to try some sweets. Bob had a pear covered in chocolate and shaped into a mouse the past two days. I wanted a chocolate pretzel but the stand didn't have any just now when I walked by. Also want to try one of the crazy hot drinks with wein and liquor and whipped cream. yum.

Oh, and remind me to tell more about the Communications museum later because it was super cool.

Tomorrow to Nurnberg.