When I first arrived in Frankfurt, it was already evening and I was completely starving. So I checked into the hostel and went in search of food. I was staying on Kaiserstrasse, less than half a block east of the Hauptbahnhof. I hadn’t noticed it on the way to my hostel, but when I came out I saw that there were several food stands lining the end of Kaiserstrasse, serving such things as pretzels, sausages and the like. I pondered stopping there, but really wanted to sit down. I finally found a place (read all about my dining experiences in my other Frankfurt journal, Multiethnic Dining in Frankfurt).
After that first meal, I walked around rather aimlessly, until finally ending up at Main Tower. But before I reached it, I saw all sorts of interesting things around my hostel. For one thing, almost right next door to it was a sex shop. Now, I come from Oklahoma, and we just don’t have things like that… But then I walked on and saw another one, on a corner, which reached out and grabbed me with a vicious wafting urine odor. I was actually a bit curious about this. The entrance was a double door, and both were open, and I wondered where exactly the stench was coming from. So I ended up standing off to the side, trying to figure this out, but in the process also observed the people going in and out of this shop. And I was quite shocked to notice that they all appeared normal. Normal people go to sex shops? Well, I’ll be.
I never did figure out the exact origin of the smell, but I did also notice another shop within view, called "AMERICA – Peep Show". Um, why? Americans are far more prudish than Europeans. Maybe that’s part of the attraction?
So I moved on. It wasn’t long before I came to something even more interesting. Between Rossmarkt and Berliner Strasse, at Bethmannstrasse, was a giant, plastic euro. It made me think of Oral Roberts’ gigantic Praying Hands, which are less than a mile from my parents’ house in Tulsa. A bit much, but perhaps extremely telling. It’s Frankfurt: the euro, that’s what it’s all about…
That night, I ended up going back to the hostel, but the next day I went walking along the river, towards Römerberg. There are several nice areas to rest along the river and admire the view, or to buy tickets for a cruise. I noticed that the main pedestrian bridge (Eiserner Steg), which was quite ornate and quite inviting, was rather unattractively closed off with metal fencing. I wondered why.
Römerberg itself was nice, but I found some cool things on the eastern end of it. After wandering around the square for a while, I headed of toward the Dom. Before I reached it, I found the Historischer Garten. This is a small archeological excavation site. They found Roman and Carolingian foundations. It’s not particularly impressive, but there are a couple of nice model reconstructions showing how the Carolingian buildings would have looked, and how the site looked when it was excavated.
I glanced at the Dom, which was unfortunately under construction, and covered in scaffolding. I ended up walking back toward the square, and then I found the strangest thing: a burned out car, covered in sand. Now, why on earth was that still here? This was ostensibly a completely pedestrianized area. And the car was situated (not parked, exactly) along the walk to a museum. I couldn’t help wondering if there was not something quite sinister about the whole scene.
Past the car was a museum, and I saw that they had an exhibition on called "Das Rätsel der Kelten", or something like that, which I knew had something to do with Celtic history or archeology. (Later I found out it meant "The Mysteries of the Celts".) Now, I’m quite interested in Celtic "stuff" as it pertains to the British Isles, and I really wanted to see this exhibition. But, I went inside and was told that the audio guides were only in German, there was no printed English material… The guy selling tickets was able to tell me all this in perfect English, though. I declined the 4-euro ticket, sorely disappointed.
On Saturday morning I was really lazy and didn’t get up and around until quite late. I had decided to head to Museumsufer. Just after I crossed the river on the pedestrian bridge Holbeinsteg, I could see that there was all sorts of buying and selling activity along the Museumsufer. I had stumbled across the Sachsenhauser Ufer Flohmarkt (fleamarket). There were several vendors selling some of the strangest things: one guy had an extensive display of tools, from large power tools down to screws and nails. I bought some cheap batteries. But as I ambled amongst the stalls, most were shutting down and packing up—it was about 2:15 in the afternoon.