Paradise Deutsch: To Continue...

...After the disappointment of the minibar and my mild concussion, we walked into the old town and after walking round in circles a few times, ate in a restaurant called Claudia's, in what looked from the outside to be a cosy, old-style German tavern but turned out to be styled on a bizarre Greek-Turkish hybrid last decorated during the early eighties, serving all manner of interesting dishes as long as you didn't mind the compulsory slab of raw animal that accompanied each meal or the distracting sounds of German Shrek 2 blaring from the television at the other end of the restaurant. Claudia was nowhere to be seen, unless she was one of several eight-year-old children glued to the tv or the short, seemingly-drunk Turk who served us. We were the only customers.

We spent Easter Saturday as tourists in Frankfurt and, though it's mainly a business city, the old town had enough charm to endear itself to me, only occasionally ruined by Adam poiniting out places he threw up during the World Cup, walls himself and Disco Dave had peed up, and the spot where the topless girls on the Sun bus had parked up to entertain....

At the Main Tower (I asked the stupid question, where are the other towers if this is the Main Tower? To clarify: Frankfurt is on the Main (pronounced mine) river and is actually called Frankfurt-am-Main. Adam gave me the usual look before I realised my mistake) somebody tapped me on the shoulder to ask if we had yet been to such-a-thing at such-a-place. I can't tell you what she was asking because I was so agape at what this girl was wearing to go sightseeing in Frankfurt! Still reeling I managed to mumble out that no, we'd not been there yet (had we? I had no idea!) and turn around again quickly. It was too good to be true so I'm afraid I did a bad thing and took this picture when we had reached the top of the tallest building in Frankfurt:

And just in case it's not clear enough, here is a close up of the shoes - my feet ache just looking at them! To Cassie they probably look like slippers...

Here are a couple more pictures from Frankfurt, including the alternative view from the top of the Main Tower...

After our brief tour of Frankfurt (and yes, we did eat Frankfurters - not as good as I was hoping for!) it was time to go the football game, Eintracht Frankfurt versus Energie Cottbus. They're not great teams but it was good game - sadly Frankfurt lost 1-3 and had a player injure his leg so badly that even Cottbus players immediately shouted for a medic.

The stadium was amazing and apart from the riduculously expensive and complicated process needed to buy beer and bratwurst (which, lets face it, was why I went in the first place) it was a great day and I came away with my Eintracht scarf (now on floor in spare room) determined to follow Frankfurt during my time in Germany!

Easter Sunday (nearly done now, I promise!): Adam had brought me an Easter egg, which was opened and eaten within five minutes of opening my eyes and we spent the day around the Marktplatz and the Schlosspark. The park was so beautiful and out of the 23 Easter Sundays I have participated in, I have never felt so Eastery as last week (apart from when I won the Easter Bonnet competition at the age of 5 and accepted my prize with a gracious "I won, haha!". It was deserved though - my hat was an eruption of painted eggs, yellow fluffy chicks, and pink flowers, all topped off with a huge stuffed rabbit eating a very orange carrot - I could barely walk). The park was buzzing with people enjoying the nice weather and hunting for Easter eggs. There were painted eggs in the trees and children feeding rabbits and chickens and I just thought to myself all day that I love living in this country! I couldn't help but think that if this was a park in Manchester, the rabbits would be shot with a BB gun and all the eggs stolen and sold on the market the following week....