Wednesday 14 December 2011

Aileen's Adventures in Deutschland Part 1; Ich haben die time of my life; und I've never felt this wei befür

"You must not mention the war, never the war, must not not NOT exacerbate tensions between Germany and Britain at this time of fiscal uncertainty in the Eurozone...and while you're at it, leave the Jews out of it too."

Thus is my preparation for mein very first trip to the Fatherland and if you think careless humour at the expense of one of the darkest hours of Europe's troubled history constitutes a dreadful lack of respect for the sensitivity of the subject you can sod right off because there's plenty more non-PC merriment where that Fawlty Towers reference came from.

Yes, no sooner am I back in Madrid than we are off on our grand Abenteuer across the Alps to a land flowing with...well if not milk and honey then plenty of beer and bratwurst! We've been talking to each other in our best German....accents (well, its all about getting into the spirit of the thing) for the last month and the stage is set for our journey to Frankfurt Christmas markets.

And true to form we are no sooner in the queue for Ryanair discussing the cut and thrust political issues of the day i.e Merkel driving the Euro train all guns blazing into the abyss when one of our party becomes an instant heroine when she utters the thoughtful phrase;

"I mean, what ever happened to not letting Germany take over the world?"

And so it begins. Incidentally, I rather believe Cameron had the same thought last week...

Take off, landing and a couple of hours of sprechensing with a German girl called Teresa later we were in Frankfurt Hahn and were in for a surprise.

Let me clarify; we have not a word of German between us. It was all we could do to stutter out Vier to the bus driver in a tragic attempt to communicate that we would like four tickets to Franfurt centre please (diabolical Michael O'Leary rubbing his hands in glee at his cunning use of satellite airports...airsmallnaturalcoves more like) Thus we were unable to understand any of his furious verbage and gesturing which occured when we hopped on the bus, found no seats, people perched on the steps down to the WC and when we turned around to say "My good man, there is no space for us weary travellers!" what came out was "Ahhhhhhhhhhh?"

"Seeet, seeeet!"

He wanted us to sit. He had a fearsome moustache. And so sit we did. In the aisle of the coach, for two hours into Frankfurt itself. It was like a wonderful hallucinogenic dream and definitely not like being transported. Most certainly not. Why, White Christmas was playing softly on the radio and the lights on the Autobahn seemed almost like the twinkling of Christmas trees. The occasional elbow in the back of the head nonwithstanding, its always nice to try new seating arrangements.

Frankfurt am Main (or Main-hattan given the striking cluster of skyscrapers which give a very New York-esque skyline) has definitely gotten into the Yuletide spirit by going mad on wee twinkling lights and an iciness that threatened to crystalise our bone marrow. Even the Christmas trees were freezing their baubels off. But that did not deter us as we tottered up to our hostel to be greeted with the first clue of exactly what sort of trip this would be.

WOS! World Of Sex! Peep shows daily! Unpronounceable German of a dirty nature!

Granted, the fact that we play Spot a Prozzie for teh lolz on any given Madrileno night should have long ago stripped us of any residual squeamishness about a sex shop next door and to be fair we were most appreciative that the mannequinns were themselves in a holiday mood dressed up like Mrs Claus after half a bottle of vodka and and a twinkle in Mr Claus' eye. But still...

The second clue came as we tottered up to our dorm room. Twas my first experience of a dorm room. I had great expectations of making friends from around the world, of like minded eurotripping individuals...of perhaps sleeping with my passport and euros secreted about my person. What I, nay, none of us were prepared for was Crazy Wolfgang.

Picture it if you will; we're all sitting on bunk beds, planning dinner when the door clicks ominously and He enters; giving the phrase two left feet new and terrible meaning. He is cloaked in weirdness and a fog of cigarette smoke and cheap beer. He appears to be as old as time itself. He raises his head, cocks it to one side and sways at us like a snake charmer.

"British?"

We make no reply. The silence that follows this query is loud yet nevertheless you can hear four young female minds panicking at once. It sounds rather like mice screaming.

"You like this?"

He thrusts a CD case at us, waving it like twas the Stone Tablets and he was Moses. We had to say yes, those plastic things have sharp edges. We were all staring at a pink cover emblazoned with a name resembling Chumbawumba wondering if we could get away with replying "British yes, and we got the damn Yanks involved the last time you people tried something like this so piss off!"

The Great and Terrible Wolfgang then decided to stagger off for a while; in which time some of us ran down and had urgent lawyerly chat with reception and the rest of us wondered about using some chalk to draw a sort of Maginot Line or at least learn to sleep with one eye open.

Relocation, relocation later we were ready to hit the town, lack of German regardless and find a recommended restaurant we had high hopes for. Now the normal setbacks occurred; indeciphirable maps, crazy men headbutting tram signs and jabbering away at us and the like but eventually we rocked up at a dark little tavern with the name "Proletariat" proudly displayed ouside.

Inside we were greeted by a man with the most beautifully done make up I've ever seen in my life. I was tempted to ask where he'd got that just-so shade of Cherry Plum. He wore black and held himself in the manner of kings. For the sake of cultural mick-taking lets call him Fritz.

Fritz let forth a stream of German. We hold our own;

"Veir" we counter proudly; indeed there are four of us, now he must lead us to a four seater table. Easy peasey ja!

I say table, I mean bench of scrubbed dark wood with trestle chairs. The tavern is lit by candle bulbs, there are exposed beams of wood, gingham curtains, eartherware jugs and a hum of chatter in German which lets us know we are in for an authentic night. And so we find that Fritz not only speaks English but can recommend us specialities. I opt for the schnitzel; in poetry speak, I'm feeling the food, not German, no good.

Schnitzel turns out to be breaded chicken and not something like jellied goose livers and it is the first time in the history of comedic writing that such a circumstance has produced disappointment. However the green sauce with it is yummy and germanic and complements the chicken so well its almost like it wants to get it into bed.

But the schnitzel is nothing, nothing (yes I Bold and Italiced) compared to the Apfelwei or apple wine. This substance is served in large stoneware jugs painted blue and goes down a treat. We are asked would we like some soda water with it. We wonder why. Fritz informs us it is to dilute the wine. We look at him as though he has sprouted another effeminately painted head. Dilute the wine? Certainly not. It is then that Fritz chuckles and informs us of an old German phrase "The liver grows with practice." It is then I glance around and note that every table has bottles of soda water surrounding one lone jug. I then stare thoughtfully at our now diminished second pitcher of apfelwei and wonder if this is one of those times when we feel sober as judges until the time comes to get up whereupon we feel dizzy, black out and wake up in French Legion uniform on a steamship to Calcutta.

Dinner comsumer, free chocolate pudding from Fritz om-nommed, bill paid we wander back into the frosty German night to make our way back to our hostel on Kaiserstrauss which we will later come to learn is the vice trade, red light, repent ye sinners centre of Frankfurt am Main.

But to get to that later you'll have to tune in next time where you will find debuachery, political protest, culture, Christmas spirit(s) and much more lurking in the city where any citizen would be proud to proclaim "Ich bin ein Frankenfurter!"

xo

1 comment:

  1. Hmmm, I'm pretty sure Schnitzel should be pork hammered flat! I'm a vegetarian though, so will bow to your superior knowledge...!

    xxx

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