This Ordinary Life

Ah, to be young... Well, a weekend in Frankfurt showed me that my own real-life sitcom friends and I can still keep up with those born the same year as the 1988 Seoul Olympics!

Frankfurt and I have a long history. It was my gateway into Germany as a boy of 16 when I first moved across from the USA as an exchange student. Over the years I have made numerous visits, but the last one was almost 6 years ago. So when I had the chance to do a bit of reconnaissance of the German market for work, I jumped at the chance. I have a friend who recently moved to Frankfurt for work, so in my usual style, I combined work with play to make a weekend of it.

Two of my uncle's (well, they're actually my second cousins) live in Frankfurt as well as another good friend of mine, so Friday night was designated "reunion night" complete with family and friends. The venue was "Zum Gemalten Haus", a very famous and well-known ebbelwoi (a.k.a cider) stube in Sachsenhausen. They serve cider in large 3 litre earthenware jugs accompanied by even larger plates of boiled meat. The haspel (boiled pork knuckle) wasn't anything special and actually gave me a temporary bout of digestive meat overload syndrome, but the ebbelwoi, Handkaese mit Music (a fermented cheese served with onions and buttered bread) and Rote Groetze (fruits of the forest compote with vanilla sauce) more than compensated. A few more people joined us including another mate from London and we had a whale of a time. In the usual style, my one uncle rounded up the meal by berating me for crimes against society (well, not really just for being disorganised in his eyes for using email to communicate). He's always done that and it was good to see that some things never change.

Well, after we left there we went to another local neighbourhood bar where we coined a new phrase "something-bedurftig", which means that something has something else necessary (e.g. Trinkbeduerftig means needing to get your drink on), before catching a taxi with some randoms we picked up (one of which happens to work for the same company as my mate!) and headed to a club called "King Kamehameha". This is a very cool club with a pool (very dangerous). Well, we partied it up to 3:30am at which point the lights went on and we were forced to go home. Enroute we managed to find the only open Doner Kebab place and shut it down at 4am. This did include my mate ruining a perfectly good doner with too many chilli flakes that surprisingly didn't seem to haunt him the next morning. Stomach of steel, I think!

We finally made it home around 4:30am where I was forced to engage in some seriously challenging mechanical feats which resulted in me sleeping on an uninflated air mattress on the floor. My mate had already bagged the couch and was snoring away… ah, bless…

Saturday was a late start (11:30). My one mate had lost his voice, my cough was getting persistently worse and we realised that getting changed in my mate's living room meant that we were on display for all the morning walkers and joggers for the world to see. We watched a 30 Rock and Flight of the Commodores omni-bus and then headed out for a bit of city-seeing. First place we went was the local brothel where you can stand between a woman’s legs and get your picture taken (see photo). With heart's racing from seeing a brothel from the outside (we'll all strapping young lads, thank-you!), we wandered around town before heading home to get ready
for the evening's activities, a sub-25's house party at my other mate's flat.

Now you know you are getting old when people comment about being half your age. Luckily, everyone was of legal age so this couldn't happen to me, but it did to one of the other "older" guys there. Shock-horror! We then proceeded to drink copious amounts of a strong beer (7.5%) which was the German equivalent of Special Brew. However, without losing our dignity, we managed to drink the youngin's under the table, make up lyrics to every song under the moon and last until 4am again. We even managed to make a quick stop in BB's (a very late night bar) which was full of drunken tuxedos and ball dresses.

It was another late start on Sunday, but this time we did manage to get out for breakfast. We went to Wegners, a wickedly trendly cafe. This allowed us to round out our visit eating Strammer Max and River Shrimp with mash.

It was great to see how our mate is getting on in Frankfurt. Between his stunning riverside apartment in the Deutschherrenufer area, great bars/clubs/cafes/restarants, a killer skyline and some really nice people, we think he's got a pretty good thing going. It wasn't my first trip to Franfurt and hopefully it won't be too long until I get back there again.

Frankfurt is definitely Besuchbedurftig!