Day 23 + 24: Frankfurt and Bad Homburg

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Day 23: Frankfurt

So, Flixbus. It's an experience. The bus originated in Munich so at least it was on time, but my God do people suck at lining up and not pushing each other - it's like a mosh pit when the bus arrives as everyone jostles and pushes to out their luggage under the bus and get their ticket checked. I have a few more short rides with them on this trip, but I now know that I won't be travelling with them again. I didn't have this problem with Eurolines or with Touring (the other main German bus line).

Arriving in Frankfurt was a nice treat. I had booked a stay at the Clarion Hotel for 2 reasons: A) belated birthday present to myself to stay in an actual hotel rather than a hostel for a few days and B) I'm like 500 pts short for a free American Airlines flight and they all expire in September... so I needed to stay at a hotel where I could collect points to keep them active for another year - I refuse to let them expire lol.

This worked out in my favour as when I arrived to check-in (at 11am... ahem) they surprised me by not just letting me actually check-in SUPER early but they upgraded my room as a birthday treat. Aw yehhhhh. The room is super lush. I love it. Mood lights and all lol. The neighbourhood is super sketch though - it's the red-light district, smells like pee, and drunks and questionable characters all over. But I don't go out when it's dark anyway, and there seems to be good police presence so meh. It's worth it. (Also explains the relative cheapness of a 4-star hotel I suppose)

I really didn't do that much today - I basically just explored a bit around the main shopping area - I'm getting to the point in my trip where I loose a little steam on travel days haha. But that's ok.

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Day 24: Bad Homburg

Headed out to Bad Homburg today - it's about 20 min north of the city. There's a big park (Kurpark) that was nice to walk around - there's a lot of random statues - no idea what they're for or about since the signage was German, but still neat to see. There's a big pond and fountain in the middle - the fountain shoots pretty high, so it was nice to get the spray from it since it's pretty toasty.

There's a great big church near the castle, but there was a wedding about to start so I didn't get to go look inside. Too bad because it's supposed to be quite lovely. There was a nice park and garden area around the castle, so I puttered around there for a bit, admiring the flowers and the super random statues.

The main reason I went was for the castle and my goodness, I literally don't even know what to tell you about it because the visit was an incredibly fun fail lol. So, I get there and all the signage is all German. K, cool, that's fine. I know enough by looking at the sign that I'm supposed to get a ticket if I want to go in, so I go to buy one and the guy tells me the tour is in German. I said that's fine, I just want to see the castle. Do I need to join a tour? "No... you need a castle card" Ok... I'll take that...? Then we just awkwardly stared at each other. Now is a good time to highlight his English was... questionable. So again, I tried lol. Ticket? Schloss? Again he said Ja, in German. No English. Again I'm like that's ok..??? He proceeds to look at this other guy who works there, they say something to each other in German, and my original guy finally goes "ja ok" and gives me a ticket. I was so confused.

So, I head off into the courtyard thinking I was just walking around. There's the "White Tower" in the middle of the courtyard, so I started taking pics of that - it has statues of ravens above the door which I found interesting. I then hear someone screaming from across the courtyard "ALLOOOOO". I ignored the first scream, but after the second scream I look over to be like wtf? And the other guy from the ticket booth is waving me over. Uhm. Right. So I go over and he's like "tour? tour. late" and taps his watch. It's 1:02pm. WHAT IS HAPPENING?

So apparently I did have to join a tour to see the castle... and yep, it was all in German. That was pleasant. I passed the time trying to figure out how many words on average I could make out (1 out of 10-15, give or take). It was just me and an older couple - but they were really sweet, they gave me a few details just so that I had some general idea of what I was looking at. But I mean, I still have no idea about the history or the lineage or any of that lol. It was pretty though. There is a bunch of art, tapestries, old furniture, etc. It's interesting just to see all the details. There were a lot of swans, like on the light fixtures. I didn't take pictures inside though because I was afraid to take my camera out lol.

But wait! Icing on the cake? AT THE END OF THE TOUR THE TOUR GUIDE SPOKE IN PERFECT ENGLISH TO ME. I'm sorry but you can f right off dude. I understand that there's an attitude that tourists and/or anglophones often feel like they're entitled to being served in English and that rubs people the wrong way (trust me, I get that since I'm also French and have to deal with that attitude all the time), but you're telling me you couldn't have a) helped out when I was trying to buy a ticket or b) thrown me a tidbit or two rather than leave the other people on the tour to give me some tidbits because they just so happened to speak English? Seriously? Why speak to me in English at the END. Asshole.

Also, I've very much discovered that around the hotel and the train station in Frankfurt I have to adopt the "I-DARE-you-to-talk-to-me" absolute bitch face to keep the drunks and people asking for money away... like they are aggressive in your face panhandlers here. I guess it's good practice for London, although to be fair in London it's much more of a "I-swear-I'm-not-that-kind-of-tourist-I'm-as-annoyed-by-people-as-you-locals-are" bitch face to integrate with the locals haha. But for real, Frankfurt has issues. Cops didn't seem present today... and as such I got to see a lot of interesting things in the tunnel between my hotel and the train station (including such hits as a man peeing in the main terrace area trying to make the biggest circle possible, a lady around my age singing and chucking garbage all over the place and 2 guys snorting something near the escalators). For what it's worth, I'm in for the night lol.

Reading this back, I feel it sounds like I had an unpleasant day lol but it was mostly good! Honest haha.

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Comments

[Irene]

He spoke English
After all that, he spoke English? OMG that's so funny - never a dull moment. The door knocker looks like a grumpy Loki face!