Heading south, first stop Frankfurt

Trip Start May 13, 2008
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Trip End Sep 04, 2008


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Flag of Germany  ,
Tuesday, May 27, 2008

I arrived in Germany May 14, which left me almost three weeks to travel, well, wherever I wanted to go that wasn't too expensive.  Two summers ago when I was in a similar situation, I couldn't seem to bear staying in the same city for more than a couple nights.  The inertia from the flight kept me moving the whole summer.  The laws of travel inertia, though, vary slightly from those of classical physics.  The more I have travelled, the more I yearn to travel deeper and not wider.  To slow down and let a place get to you, instead of just getting to places.  In South Africa I made it a rule not to leave the country, even though I could have driven five hours in five different directions from where I was working and find myself in the capital of five different countries.  The time that could have been spent country hopping was instead spent gaining a deeper understanding and appreciation of the nation of South Africa, both of its physical terrain and national psyche.

Basically, I intend to follow a similar, but more relaxed, philosophy during my time in Germany and, eventually, Switzerland.  In this vein, I booked a hostel in, and a train to, Frankfurt, the central German city known for banking and, presumably, other things.  It took me about a week to actually get around to doing this, though, as backpacker after backpacker came through Cologne, took a look at the cathedral, and charged on to Amsterdam or Berlin.  This was, of course, me two years ago.  As they rushed through, I lay dormant, making casual trips to U of Cologne, or to Bonn, apartment and bicycle searching.  I eventually found an apartment in Bonn, right next to the train station (good for commuting), and coincidentally with two very cool roommates, which I learned at one of their birthday parties a few days after agreeing to move in.  It was a great time spent on the Rhine, in a park next to a beer garden.  For the uninitiated, a beer garden is just a bar next to a park, along with some picnic tables.  You can bring your own food, but are generally expected to buy the drinks there, if you sit at the tables.  Or you can bring your own food and drinks and sit in the park.  But you can always use their bathroom.

So I dropped by my apartment to drop of some dead weight off before, finally, heading off to Frankfurt and, on my way out the door, one of my (German) future roommates told me that Frankfurt is no good, that I should skip it, go on south to Munich or Stuttgart.  Nein, I say, with six million people surely there will be some interesting stuff to see or do.  Well, she was right.  Frankfurt is very, in a word, American.  The city sprawled, the downtown was more or less abandoned on the weekend, and the architecture was all modern and inconsistent.  It is definitely the German Atlanta.  Pedestrian-friendly space was limited.  I didn't get around to the German architecture museum, something that would have probably been great, but I still couldn't give a city high praise based on a museum alone.   The hostel, though, was great; many interesting people, free pasta one night, very fun, etc, none of which spoke of the city of Frankfurt itself.  And then I went to Munich.
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