4-30-09 Frankfurt

This is it - our last full day on the Continent. We had competing priorities - to try and squeeze in as much fun as possible in our final moments, and to try to stay rested and not ruin a good time by being tired and sore. This is a delicate balancing act, one which usually errs on the side of the former.

An internet review of our hotel said that the free breakfast was only cornflakes, so we opted to pay for a nice sugary breakfast at Starbucks. Here as usual, we try our best to speak German, but the staff always act annoyed and switch to English. My pronunciation could use a little work but Natasha's sounds perfect, and yet people act like they cannot understand us. We'd like to practice and get better but people seem intent on forcing us to speak English.

In Frankfurt we found the Film Museum, which happened to be having an H.R. Giger exhibit. We saw tons of antique cameras, special effects, the original robot from the silent film Metropolis, and of course, the Giger exhibit.

Outside we found this giant Euro sign, which we understand to be outside the official bank of the European Union.
Also, the architecture of this mall, called the MyZeil Centre, was intriguing. We found out later that it was designed by the Italian architect Massimiliano Fuksas. The windows apparently have to be cleaned by workers using mountain climbing gear to get inside these strange "tunnels" that snake through the building.
Natasha found her favorite copy yet of Alice in Wonderland in a small bookstore over the river. It was a little expensive, so we decided to see if we could find a more reasonable one somewhere else. We saw a Turkish restaurant on a boat moored to the side of the river. As the day wore on, we were not having much luck finding bookstores, and the ones we did find did not have copies of Alice in Wonderland. Finally we decided to go back to the store, only to find that it had closed 90 minutes earlier. This put a damper on the day.
Once again we had walked ourselves sore, but it was worth it. We returned to the hotel.