Some days you wonder if you're ever going to win another poker hand ever again. Days like Sunday, in
fact. Bad cards after bad cards, followed by bad beat after bad beat, followed by missed draw after missed
draw, followed by...
Wait, I was going to tell you about Frankfurt...
Until a couple of weekends ago, I'd never really spent any time in Germany, apart from three hours
outisde
the toilets at Berlin Station, that is (Inter-railing), and I'd never given much
thought
to the idea of speaking the language, and I have to say I loved it all. I'd still sooner emigrate to Spain
-
Barcelona two weeks previously was considerably warmer than the sub-zero windchill of central Germany -
but the
language is a darned sight easier on the English tongue than, say, Spanish or Catalan, and the people were
charming in a
way we Brits were unfamiliar with until Jurgen Klinsmann joined Tottenham after the 1994 World Cup. Big
thanks especially go to Stefan, our impromptu coffee house found guide, who may have led us to apple wine
that tasted like a sample, and didn't think we could go up any big towers, but whose effortless charm and
easy smile made us forget exactly how cold it was.
Friday was spent travelling, and finding a bar without the kind of ambience we had left behind in
England. To our joy, we found ourselves in a confusingly small, mirrored bar, observing in amazemed
bewilderment some men who were old enough to know better, play a drinking game that appeared to involve one
player standing on one foot, on his stool, while raising the other to waist level, the act greeted by ever
greater cheer, the longer the evening went.
On the Saturday of our two-night trip (the travelling party was 21-strong, a collection of colleagues
from work) for a quick reminder of the cold (did I mention that it was cold?) some of our party opted to
journey to the top of Frankfurt's 5th tallest, and only publicly open, tower - The Main Tower. The lift
whisked us up at a smooth 18kph, 200 metres to the top, where it was, unsurprisingly, colder than cold. It
was warmer
one floor below, in the bar, although we had to avoid the clutches of the lift boy to sneak into an
alternative lift to get there. Sadly the bar was closed, according to the attendant bar staff, but we
lingered, feeling that only the
manager had sufficient authority to throw us out.
After being thrown out by the manager, we returned to ground level, and set about finding somewhere to
camp for the afternoon. Appropriately enough we found a gay bar in an old square, where we proceeded to
spend the afternoon in pleasant chat and drink. At least I think it was pleasant - I may have turned into a poker and
music bore at some point, and by the time we left the recommended restaurant just down the road
several hours later, we'd found what at the time was surely the world's most amusing prop, in the form of
these brilliant and hilarious masks, in the section of restaurants and bars normally reserved for crap
postcards of things written in a foreign language you don't understand, for things you wouldn't want if
you know what they meant. Outside, we amused the rest of our party, who were heading to the
restaurant as we were leaving, before I scaled the mountain of comedy to its cloudy summit by staring at a
taxi driver through his window, until he said something I didn't entirely comprehend but could guess at
the gist of, and drove off through the late evening snow.
On the recommendation of a homeless man - surely the best way of locating night-life in any unfamiliar
city... - we made our way to 'Helium', an unassuming club in a random street amidst some shops, where the
beer was cheap and
the vodka the price of the mortgage on the average two-bed home counties semi-detached house. Before I could
order my 50th round to make up for the price of the drinks others had bought for me, though, I despatched
myself to bring the others to the club, rather than attempt to direct them from the restaurant. It was hard
to tell which way we had walked with the masks on, but as fortune would have it, the two were but a
snowball's throw apart. I quaffed a cheeky, and very generous, JD at the restaurant on
account of its
relative cheapness, but having talked all day I found my conversation running dry. This may explain
why I attempted to entertain four people with a distinctly unamusing story about how I'm no good at making
cous cous.
So, on to the club again, where the DJ had apparently turned the amp up to 11. So,
back out of the club
again. For the first time in my life, someone said to me "hey, let's go back to the gay bar", and off we
ambbled through the snow. Someone pointed out immediately that the
barmaid was clearly a ladyboy; a fact that had eluded me throughout the entire afternoon's drinking. Only
now did I notice
that her hands were indeed on the large side. More drink was drunk. By now I had given up on
coherent
conversation. Then, a commotion at the door, and in from the white night walked two friends, who had
recently visited a local hospital. One, because he had required stitches in an eye wound gained from a
badly
executed snow slide, the other because he was good enough to accompany him. I offered them both a
well-earned smoke, since it didn't involve much skill at language. Although really, I should say skill at
English, since my German had come on in leaps and bounds by this stage, as is often the case with
alcohol.
However good I got though, I failed to convince most Germans I met that I was in fact German - one
possible exception was a couple of young fillies who chose me from the crowd (sounds interesting...) to take
their photo (not so interesting...). The situation gave me the opportunity to practice the fine art of
international mumbling. A mumble, you see, sounds much the same in any language. Mumble with the correct
delivery and intonation for your locale, and you can pass yourself off as a local with the minimum of
effort. I found this to be most effective when pushing through the crowded club, too. Curiously, though,
whereas in most European countries my stumbling attempts at speaking the local language - or in Budapest,
my attempts to demonstrate to the ticket inspector on the bus an utter lack of comprehension of all known
languages - usually
lead to the assumption that I'm German, in Germany this was seldom the case.
And then, all too soon, we were out of the door, and on our way home. As is my wont, I insisted we were
going
the wrong way until it was too obvious to deny that I was wrong. I like to think that this tactic keeps the
guide focussed on following the correct route. More likely, it keeps them focused on wanting to hit me.
And then sleep, and then travelling, and then back to the sprawl and metallic sleek of Bournemouth
International Airport. How I hate the journey home. Especially when I'm tired, trying to rehydrate. Ah, but
I have memories.
Memories and badly framed photos of the days courtesy of my new I-almost-know-how-to-use-it digital
camera.