Saturday May 18 -- Frankfurt

Woke early, feeling slightly stiff from lugging the backpack around yesterday. Had breakfast and decided to walk into Frankfurt to get my bearings and stretch a bit. My back has been reasonably OK so far, but I don't want to put myself out of action by abusing it. 

I started by following the tram line, which took me due south, through mainly residential areas. One area seemed to be the stonemason's block, though -- a row of five or six businesses, all offering a display of tasteful gravestones or funeral monuments to erect over one's remains. How do you pick one from another, I wonder; ask 'what's your best deal on a pink marble slab with gold lettering? Anything off for cash?' As with catering for weddings, I suspect the price of masonry goes up arbitrarily when funerals are involved.

Eventually the tram disappeared underground where I could not follow. I kept going and found myself at the Zoo, which was interesting but not really where I wanted to be. Cafes were starting to open by now so I had a coffee and turned right, past a cafe named after Agatha Christie, along some drab commercial streets, and eventually into the main tourist area of Frankfurt. On the way I stopped at some big pharmacies trying to find eyedrops, but they were nowhere to be seen. Nosedrops, eardrops and everything else was in evidence, but no eyedrops. I shall have to investigate this mystery further.

Getting closer to the station the area became lower-rent and more ethnically diverse; Turkish restaurants in abundance and a backstreet mosque or two.

The station itself is slightly less intimidating on second acquaintance. I found the tourist office and bought a 2-day Frankfurt ticket for #15.50, covering all local transport and discount museum entrance. 'Local' means Zone 50, by the way, but I don't see any easy way to tell whether or not you're about to leave Zone 50, since there are no conductors or ticket collectors on the trams or trains.

From the station I found my way to the river Main, crossed the high bridge with some trepidation, and started on what became Peak Museum Day. There are multiple museums ranged along the river here, all of them small-ish, given over to particular specialities. The first one was an homage to a Dr Froebenius, who sounds like a character from a Jules Verne book, and probably should have been in one. He was an anthropologist who took teams of students to various locations around the world, and the museum consists mainly of the drawings, paintings, photos and other records that they made. No English captions here, so I had to extrapolate a bit, but they seem to have had some exciting times. Several women were involved, and somehow the artist Paul Klee seems to have got into the act, possibly because he painted things inspired by ethnological art. But they have a few Klees on the top floor which I would imagine are worth more than all the rest put together. All these museums are in interesting old buildings, by the way.

Next was the Sculpture Gallery, located in the grounds of a wonderful old building which seems to have been some kind of chapel. The basement was given over to an ivory exhibition, of which they were justly proud; they seem to regard having acquired it as one in the eye for the art museum next door. Brilliant stuff! Higher up there was a chronologial tour of sculpture from Egyptian times onwards, with a few bits from each period, and then quite a lot from the Middle Ages. I'm beginning to approve of small museums; it's a relief to get it over with in an hour and take a coffee break before the next one. 

I skipped the art museum in favour of the Museum of Communication, which was the next one along. I should note that all these museums have lockers which operate on 1 or 2 Euro pieces, and return your money to you when you re-open them, so I was able to leave my bag and heavy coat behind. each time. I had a coffee here and then started on the top floor where they had a display on Friendship, as mediated by electronic devices. And appropriately enough for a Museum of Communications, nearly everthing had English captions. The next level down was a little display on electric vehicles, which are apparently very big in Rwanda -- who knew? --and in the basement there was a very extensive display on the history of post, radio, television and electronic communications. I resisted the urge to point to the elderly-looking Mac Plus in one cabinet and say 'I had one of those!' to the teens in the school groups around me.

It was much bigger than it looked; every time I thought I had seen the last semaphore or radiogram there turned out to be another one. One display talked about the 'Sandman', a TV character who popped up with a little homily every night when it was time to send the kids to bed. This went on for decades; East and West Germany had their own versions of the character, and when they reunited moves were made to scrap him as outdated. But there were massive protests; the Sandman was reinstated (presumably after denouncing the other as an impostor) and remains on TV apparently to this day.

Next door was the Museum of German Architecture, which is more interesting than it sounds. On the top floor there were the results of a photo competition, where architecture students were asked to provide four images relating to architecture that were linked in some way. Further down there was a collection of large and elaborate models of houses, communities and cityscapes, and on the ground floor they talked about the Frankfurt School of Architecture and it achievements, particularly in housing the growing local population after World War 1. Special credit was given to the invention of a separate kitchen, and space-saving devices like foldaway beds. Many of the building designs were very reminiscent of the apartment block I'm staying in.

On again, to the German Museum of Film, which was much better stocked than its Dutch counterpart, with lots of stereoscopes, zooetropes, movie memorabilia and a looping collection of old films, restored and preserved. Again, this was very popular with the kids, who queued to appear in front of a green screen and see themselves projected into dinosaur territory.

Is that all? No, there was one more, the Museum of Design, where I had to empty my pockets,  be scanned and temporarily give up my water bottle. Apparently I am to be allowed near medieval ivory unchecked, but not modern designer dresses. Top floor, outfits for rich Muslim women who want to go on wearing their headscarves; second floor, a rather silly display about Beauty, in which we got to vote for our choice of colours and shapes with cardboard tokens -- good computer graphics though -- and a passage through to the old house next door where they had a display of historic rooms and furniture.

That was all quite enough, so I came out, and made my way through the massive flea market in the street outside -- car parts, bike parts, tools, old electronics, clothes and the like, mainly run and frequented by immigrants, it seemed. Back over a pedestrian bridge and through absolutely teeming crowds in the city squares. Everyone was out to enjoy their sunny Saturdau afternoon, and I was just looking for a quite place to have a beer. It was around 4, so I thought I would combine that with walking back, but my route didn't seem to coincide with any attractive-looking bars. I found myself in a very drab district going past the Frankfurt School itself, and reached home without encountering a welcoming bar anywhere. So I had a can of lemon beer from the fridge instead, which was vaguely shandy-ish, and better than it probably sounds.

So dinner, reading and bed. Upset about the disappointing election results; is there really no bottom limit to the stupidity of the Australian electorate? And would it do any good to tell them so, rather than just smiling and nodding and saying 'the people have chosen'? Yes. They chose wrong.