Frankfurt, Ho
On Sunday, October 14, the day after the Klangstraum Krems show, we hopped on a train to Frankfurt. Our traveling group was quite an impressive, and probably annoying, sight. 12 people with a massive 
amount of luggage, several with impressive hangovers from the party the night before (Bruno the sound technician was the worst – 6 am before he got back to the hotel) and lots of loud and boisterous American laughing. We had to change trains once, which was quite a feat, because so much of the luggage was heavy. Two men on the platform, two men in the train, heaving and ho-ing our luggage up the stairs in record time. Guitars, handbags, HUGE suitcases, cameras – we looked like an expedition.
Once we were on the direct train to Frankfurt, a good number of us settled in to the dining car and remained there most of the trip. The main travel cars are similar in setup to airplanes, with seats relatively close together, trays in the back of the seat in front of you, luggage racks overhead (maybe a bit more leg room). The dining car, though, is quite open, with no seats blocking your view, lots of open windows to look out of. I sat in the dining car with the Monks and their wives while they consumed numerous biers, and heard quite a lot of fascinating Monks history. It is one of my best memories from the trip - my time to spend alone with the Monks and Monkettes, to be surrounded by Dave, Gary and Eddie - the people I have been working with for the past 10 years, and whom until only a few days ago I had never actually met. They are the reason I went to Germany, they are the reason we all were there. And I can't imagine a more deserving group of men, all very down to earth, warm, welcoming and loving. And I absolutely adore the Monkettes. All three of them are deeply fun loving women in very different ways, very patient with their rock star husbands, and full of life spirit. Oh, what a wonderful time.
Yep, I highly recommend the dining car when traveling, hands down..
The train we were on travels at a top speed of around 165kms per hour, which as best we could translate is around 100 miles per hour. The cabins are sort of pressurized, but when you go into a tunnel, the force of the wind pushed along by the train builds up a huge amount of pressure, and you really feel it in your ears (much worse than a plane). I had luckily brought along a bunch of gum and several people took advantage of it.
We got to see one of the REALLY fast trains go by as well, the bullet trains - they travel on a special track at around 300kms per hour!! According to Bruno, in Switzerland they are building a 50km long tunnel through the alps, and are having to invent a special system to pump the air out of the tunnel, because otherwise, if the train hit that tunnel at 300kms per hour, it would build up such air pressure it would hurt immensely, if not burst your eardrums. When the bullet train went by us, our car rocked pretty intensely from side to side.
I didn’t take many pics on this leg of the trip (some black & white film i haven't developed yet), just contented myself to look at the scenery and listen to the stories (my big digital camera is still broken, remember?). European trains travel amazingly smoothly, only when we passed one of the bullet trains or another fast train did we rock enough to grab hold of drinks. Oh, and they are fastastically quiet, not loud and roaring like American trains. I believe they are all electric, the ICE and local trains definitely are.
Of course, our group of crazy American musicians (and our Swiss / French German friend Bruno) was being loud, laughing and such, and at one point, Bruno noticed a woman sitting in a booth across the aisle kind of peeking over at us and smiling to herself. He finally asked her outright, “Are we bothering you?” and she replied, (and I paraphrase here) “No, actually it’s kind of refreshing to hear someone having fun. On German trains, most people are so serious and not talking at all, and it’s nice to hear people laughing.”
It was a really good time!
And I would definitely say that going to the bathroom in a train is a weely bit more difficult than in an airplane. Same size bathrooms, a little more rocking and rolling. Of course I always seem to go to the bathroom in an airplane just as we hit a pocket of turbulence. Guaranteed. Still, trains are trickier.
So, that evening we pull in to Frankfurt, Germany, and let me tell you, it was like going to bed in West Jefferson, North Carolina and waking up in New York City, except I woke up in quiet little Furth and went to bed in Frankfurt's red light district!
Let me back up a minute. The train station we pulled into in Frankfurt is huge, REALLY huge. 24 different train tracks, all converging into one of the largest open-air buildings I have ever seen, with four or five massive arches reaching, oh, must have been at least 100 feet overhead. Simply overwhelming in scope. The hustle and bustle, the trains coming and going. The Germans are truly serious about their trains.
Oh, I saw my first McDonalds in the Frankfurt train station.
Our hotel was about three blocks from the train station, near what can only be described as Frankfurt’s red light district. Prostitutes? Check. Peep shows? Check. Rent-by-the-hour hotels? Check. Heroin junkies? Check. We were advised to keep an eye on our purses, as purse-snatchers and pickpockets abound near the train station and in the district. Luckily our hotel was in the opposite direction as the prostitutes, peep shows, rent-by-the-hour hotels and heroin junkies, but only five or so short blocks away. In spite of this, our hotel turned out to be quite a schwanky place, and what I mean by schwanky is uber hip (with the umlaut over the u). The Bristol Hotel, it is called. Neon lights in the entryway. Sculptures of the Buddha head lined the hallway to the dining room. The hotel bar was decked out in ultra-chic décor, stays open 24 hours, and apparently is quite the happening spot with the ultra-cool locals on Friday nights.
Oh, and did I mention the purple-lit bathrooms that went with the hotel bar? They were really cool, and somewhat mysterious. Why purple lights? It was later explained that the purple lights are of a tone specifically designed so that people can’t see the veins in their arms, supposedly to discourage heroin junkies from shooting up in the Bristol Hotel bathroom. Ahhhh. Smack is apparently quite a problem with the younger generation in Frankfurt. How true the purple light story is, I'll probably never know.
When I got to my room, I walked into what I can only describe as the most bizarre mixture of chic and tackiness I have ever seen. And did I mention my hotel key had a large black tassle keychain? I was laughing most of the day and a half we were there. I will not describe the room, you can just see in the pictures. Black and white stripes, that’s all I have to say. It was the size of a cruise ship cabin, quite tiny (that is an Enselzimmer, or singleroom), but perfect size for me. It was quite clean and the staff very professional, so on the whole I felt very safe there. We did go for a walk into the red light district that night, it was pretty much like every other large city red light district in the world. Except everything in that district was in English, rather than German. That was rather odd. I guess English is the universal language of sex. Kind of funny.
Pretty much everyone in Frankfurt can speak English. In fact, I think they get a little annoyed when you try to speak stilted or poor German to them.
So, from sleepy Furth, with a monestary on the hillside and birds singing in the willow trees beside grape gardens and sweet salt-of-the-earth wine makers to hookers and neon and ragged out heroin junkies and tassle keychains, with sirens going off all night, all in a short train ride. What a contrast! What a day.
I giggled myself to sleep, once I finally stopped rocking from the motion of the train.
End of Frankfurt update one - on to update two -->