Just to dispel rumors that may arise from this title, no I did not. We did however, stay in the red light district and were therefore exposed to quite a variety of people.
Arriving in Frankfurt, we were actually not in Frankfurt… not even close. The so called “Frankfurt-Hahn Airport was in Hahn, two hours away from Frankfurt. That is A, total bullshit, and B, a pain in the ass. The discount ticket didn’t seem like too much of a discount when you consider the fact that we had to take a two hour bus ride to get anywhere near the city. This did not help my opinion of the city, which had already been brought towards my feet by everyone back in France. When we booked the tickets, we were just looking for cheap flights, and we went wherever the airfares took us. But, once we booked the tickets and started telling people where we were going, the first question was always “so, why do you want to go to Frankfurt? There is nothing there.” Shit… Well, it turns out there is something there. The best red light district in all of Germany. HA! I suppose the build up of the banking industry has produced some time restricted lonely workers with a lot of extra money. Sounds like a match made in heaven, eh?
So, arriving into the city, we make our way towards the hostel with the help of a young couple sporting an iPhone and google maps application. For the first time, we don’t have trouble getting to our hostel… yay! Being late already, it was peak hour for activity in the neighborhood surrounding our hostel. Side note, I found it interesting how the red light district is located next to the 
That night we decided to explore the neighborhood a little bit. What we found were, of course, hookers. We also ran into a Pakistani man who owned a small little shop serving little snacks and beer. We decided to grab some brew, and I had one of the best beers I ever tasted, shame I can’t remember the name of it. During out conversation with the man, we learned of his decent and it was revealed that Shephali was Indian… uh oh? No, actually. They got along splendidly while Shephali secretly looked around for a stone to throw at him… KIDDING! We ended up getting some baked snacks and meeting some drunk German kids before we parted ways. I assumed drinking on the street was kosher in a place where doggy style on the sidewalk was smiled upon. After my refreshment, the comfy bed was calling my name like a Siren and we left the rest of the city until tomorrow. Before hitting the hay we met our only roommate in the dorm room. He was a young Japanese kid traveling on his own for six months. He didn’t speak much English and didn’t know Ken Kato (damn!) so the conversation pretty much ended there.
The next morning we had breakfast, showered (I smelled like poop), and tried to talk to our roommate once again. During breakfast I talked to an old retired couple who were staying at the same hostel, oddly enough. They were from the states, Midwest I believe, and talked with envy of our current adventure. Thankfully, there was no boat or orgy proposition this time. Once taking care of that, we ventured out to discover the city.
We went to the tourist office in the train station and asked what there is to do. She showed us a map with all the different museums and nightlife spots, and then asked us to pay for said map. If memory serves me correctly this is almost exactly what I said… “Ah hell no girl, I ain’t bout to pay for no map mmm! You ever hear of a street sign honey? You point, I walk. I’ll be happy as can be with no map in MY hand, you crazy girl!” … Yup, pretty much exactly how it went. Anyways, we left without the map.
So we start cruising along, looking at the different buildings here and there. Frankfurt is a somewhat interesting story because before the war, and I mean the war in which Frankfurt got the shit bombed out of it, it was a center for factory production but also had many historic sites likes castles and churches and all that good stuff. After the war, it was pretty much a plot of land waiting to be developed. Well, that is exactly what they did. The city is extremely modern and filled with glass paneled sky scrapers. I heard the city was ugly, but I actually found it to be relatively attractive at night. Lots of shimmer! We stopped to try some apple wine, the apparent must do for the region, and wasn’t too impressed. It was a mix between shitty wine and shitty apple juice. Surprisingly, the two flavors didn’t come together to create a masterpiece as you may expect.
Continuing on, we made a few aquisitions. There was a small sign only secured with tape that tempted me too much to bear. Well, I now have a souveigner from Frankfurt! (Please see the German “no dogs allowed” sign above). Funny enough, it was outside a museum of film which had no security cameras. You want to know what I was thinking? Well, in the fight for PITA, I wanted to restore equal rights to dogs so that they could go wherever they please in this great world. Signs in general seemed to catch my interest. The word “Ausfahrt” is just too funny to pass up every time you see it… haha… ass fart… I believe my favorite find on the first part of this walk was indeed the yellow phone booth. Rave? Well of course! It’s Rave o’clock! We all crammed in and started dancing as if we had techno music in our ears. I made a short video to commemorate this occasion…
Alrighty… now that we got that out of the way, what happens next? Starting to develop a bit of a hunger but not yet ready for a meal, we decide to go in the direction of pastries. Now, not completely familiar with German baking skills, especially when compared to France, we took a leap of faith. Cory purchased… I think nothing, maybe water which doesn’t exactly tell us anything. Shephali got an almond meringue which was chewy and delicious and wonderful. I got a cookie that ultimately confused me. I had trouble understanding the rice paper and/or Styrofoam that gave the cookie support from underneath. It wasn’t very easily pulled away, so I assumed it was edible, but then again it didn’t exactly taste that great… to enjoy these treats, we went to a park and found a bench. We saw a bunch of adorable little kids playing on a playground, but more importantly a bunch of hot nannies looking after them… nice.
Also, it was at this time that i began my pigeon punting quest. Not exactly in line with my previous defense of animal rights, but pigeons are a danger to society. Fact. Ever see the movie birds? Yeah, it will happen and I take it upon myself to initiate a preemptive strike. More video ensues…
Moving from the bench, we now were actually hungry and desired some warmth. Soup is what the doctor orded, and soup is what we got. Cory again got himself a first by trying Pumpkin soup. Not only had he never had it but he had never even heard of it… crazy! It was a great pumpkin soup, too! We sat in an old style German restaurant with bench seating and a shit ton of beer on tap. Once again, some cute German girls were present. Lovin’ it! Our next stop was a bookstore, looking for a mini translation dictionary. No dice, but the owner of the store was a funny old German man. What? Check that off on my Where’s Waldo List of the world. Next to the bookstore we found a grocery store. They sell beer at grocery stores! I didn’t really care what I got, but i found a grapefruit beer. What? Lets try it. I did, and it actually tasted pretty good. Although relatively low in alcohol content and high in sugar, it was a pretty good experience overall. Do you want a picture? You do! Oh yes you do! You’ve been such a good reader today! Here you go!
Now it was dark, and mischief was in the air once again. We knew our north star was the tallest building in the sky with yellow light accents. So we made our way towards it, orange beer in hand. On the way we passed a road filled with bars that we were looking for all afternoon… damnit! It was right around the corner! When we crossed we stopped for a photo shoot of us, the skyline, and the colorful sky just after sunset. A bit cliché, but a good memory once I took the camera from Shephali and showed her how to press the button on the top right hand corner that magically captures an image. Her skills are limited in regards to the MySpace style extended arm photo shoot.
That night while back at the hostel I met a guy from Ireland who was doing the same sort of thing that we were, sort of... He was taking a whole year off of school, hitchhiking from city to city and couch surfing wherever he could. I thought it was quite interesting and then he sparked an idea. Couch Surfing! That morning we were trying to figure out where the hell we were going to sleep when we got to Oslo. You see, Oslo is a damn expensive city and all the hostels that were affordable were booked full. Our thinking prior to leaving Lyon was that we would figure it out when we got there and just wait for someone to cancel their booking. Well… they didn’t cancel, and we couldn’t really afford to get a hotel room. So, at the advice of the Irish guy we went online to the couch surfing website and placed an emergency post. For those of you who don’t know, couch surfing is based on an online community of people that allow each other to sleep on their couch, floor, or extra bed while traveling. There are hosts and surfers and the hope is that everyone who takes a little will eventually give a little back. Cool stuff, relatively safe if you give yourself time to plan (which we didn’t). Anyways, we placed an emergency post and hoped for the best. All we could do from there was go drink and have a good time.
Feeling like a Guinness and having a native in our presence, we decided to go to an Irish bar we saw earlier. I bought the guy a beer simply because he gave us our only hope for not sleeping on a park bench. Shephali was slightly smitten by him, though she won’t admit it, simply because there isn’t an Irishman that she doesn’t love… haha sorry babe! We had a beer, watched some soccer, and made our way back to the red light district. Slot machines? Sure! Damnit, no more coins… What about a strip club? What? Nobody is dancing, nobody is here… Damnit, no more dignity.
We paid another visit to our Pakistani friend and had a snack prior to bed. It was another successful day in my mind and I ended up having one of the best times in Frankfurt despite what everybody said. Just goes to show that life is what you make of it, not what it makes of you. Write that down… or just bookmark this.
Peace and Love from the Red Light District,
Scott Stephen Smith
Posts
Hahaha!
ReplyDelete