Day 32 Tuesday 2 May 2017

It was a dark and stormy night.......oops, thats the first line to my novel.  It is a dull, wet, grey day in Frankfurt, currently 9 degrees (at 11.30am) and raining.  My flight doesn't leave until 10.00 tonight so I have a whole day to fill in.  This is always a bugger of a day.  I have a late check out for the room so I dont have to be out of here until 3.00pm, but I can't check in at the airport until 6.00pm and it is only a half hour trip to the airport so I still have some time to fill in.  Still musn't grumble.

Thanks to Flashy for his well researched and interesting article on the history of snooker.

A well done to Leanne for binge reading the blog and making a comment on each entry.

Thanks to all the other contributors throughout the journey.

Clair, I am staying at the NH Collection Hotel in Frankfurt.  This is the same hotel that you, Jon and I stayed at on our 2006 European trip.  I mentioned to the receptionist that I had stayed here in 2006, she mentioned that that the rooms had been upgraded since then,  It still has those 'magic' windows where if the handle is in a certain position the window opens at the top and if it is in a different position the window opens at the side.  Still got me beat how it does that.

I  had a wander around Frankfurt yesterday afternoon in the rain.  It must have been a public holiday as few of the shops were open.  There was a flea market in the area where there was a fruit and vegie market when I visited here with Jon and Clair.  I think the thing that surprised us most on that trip was the locals enjoying a glass of champagne at the fruit and vegie market early in the morning.  No champagne here yesterday, just people standing around in the rain getting wet.

The other noticeable thing around the streets was the number of homeless, more than I have seen anywhere else.

Unlike France and Belgium you don't see any heavily armed police or military on the streets in Germany.  The only police that you see are the local police usually in ones or twos and only armed with a pistol.  I asked my friend on the train to Dresden about this.  He explained that the Germans still have a bit of a thing about seeing heavily armed police on the streets given their previous political history and the role of the police during those times.  He also told me that the military is constitutionally unable to be used internally in Germany and for the military to be able to patrol the streets, the same as those in Paris, would require a change to the German constitution,  I suppose this is also a reflection on the role the military has played in recent German history.

Frankfurt is another of those German cities that was almost totally destroyed by the bombing during the 2nd world war.  There is a photo in the cathedral that shows the cathedral somehow still standing in a sea of rubble at the end of the war.  All around the cathedral there is hardly a building still standing and those still standing were only a shell.  Amazing how a modern city was rebuilt out of all this but also they rebuilt their historic buildings in the original style and character.

Anyway, enough of this waffling, I might put on a coat and go for a walk.

Still raining outside, but been for a walk and took a couple of photos, as follows;

Frankfurt am Main in the rain

Clair this should be familiar

I still find some German words funny, even if only in a schoolboyish humour sort of way

You may be interested to know that some Frankfurters (people from Frankfurt, not the sausage) refer to Frankfurt as Mainhattan.  You see Frankfurt is on the Main river and they think that Frankfurt is the financial capital of Germany (if not Europe) so Mainhattan is a sort of play on words on Manhattan, those crazy Germans.

More to follow if anything interesting happens or I get bored......