Frankfurter = Hot Dog

On Thursday, I went to Frankfurt. It was all right, but let's just say if I had to pick 4 cities in Germany to visit, Frankfurt wouldn't be one of them. Oh well, time for pictures:

This is the Holbein Pedestrian Bridge, which crosses the Main River. (Yes, they have a river in Germany called the Main River.)

Yeah, that's right: Pedestrian Bridge. Only for pedestrians. Or cyclists, I guess. But no cars, unless those cars can ascend a narrow staircase...

That building ahead is the Städel Collection, I guess. I didn't go inside.

And this here is the Museum for Communication (I translated that myself), home of...

CavalryBot!!!

This awesome and terrible sight is the last thing you will see before you die, after the inevitable Robot Revolution.

This guy looks like he's bragging. "I can shoot water out of my fingers. Can you?" Jerk.

Here's where I stopped for lunch.

I tried Frankfurt's famous Apple Wine. The Rick Steves book I have recommended I eat Frankfurter sausages with the wine. He said it would be a good complement.

So I ordered Frankfurter Grüne Soße mit 4/2 Eier und Salzkartoffeln. Not sure what it is, but it has Frankfurters.

Then it occurred to me that, in Frankfurt, the term "Frankfurter" does not necessarily refer to hot dogs. What I actually ordered was Frankfurter green sauce with 4 half eggs and boiled potatoes. Oh. But it did complement the wine.

This here is the Eiserner Steg Pedestrian Bridge.

I have no explanation for this picture. I don't know why there is randomly a painting of a man holding a church and a picture of a stork. The inscription reads "The Stork." Yes, what about the stork?

This is St. Bartholomew's Cathedral. Below are some pictures inside the cathedral.

This depicts the matyrdom of St. Bartholomew.

I think this is a baptismal font.

Okay, moving on:

Here's a picture of a fountain, accidentally taken at the same time some random kid was posing in front of it.

Another fountain. Although this one is more like a statue with a faucet attached at the bottom.

Here's St. Paul's Church. They were having a wedding there, so I couldn't go in.

Here's some Roman ruins.

These guys are die-hard Rome fans who are trying to rebuild the empire, one ruin at a time.

Actually, I have no idea what they're doing. Or why there's a stage here, or seats all around it.

These birds are fighting over someone's dropped ice cream cone. That poor little sparrow on the right keeps getting bullied away by the big pigeons.

No, there was really nothing German about that last picture. If anything, it was Italian, because I think it was gelato, not ice cream.

The Opera House.

See that skyscraper with the candy cane on top? It's called - wait for it - Main Tower. I paid €3.50 for a trip to the top. Here are the pictures I took:

The Commerzbank Building.

Waaay down there you can see St. Bartholomew's and St. Paul's. And the Eiserner Steg bridge.

The European Central Bank. In it's front yard you can see a blue € symbol.

See?

The Hauptbahnhof, and all the trains pulling in and out.

At the bottom of the pointy skyscraper is the Messe, a big convention center.

And these buildings are the Deutsche Bank towers.

Here's a close-up of the red-and-white striped pole on the top of the Main Tower.

After I finished in the Main Tower, I went back to the train station and came home. My next trip will be to Dresden, next weekend. Tchüs!

Toilet Water

I went to Cologne last Monday. Did you know that the original cologne was toilet water from the town of Cologne? Gross, huh? Also, they call the city Köln. How do we get Cologne from Köln? No idea.

Okay, time for pictures.

Right outside the train station, I see this beautiful cathedral, Kölner Dom, a.k.a. Hohe Domkirche St. Peter und Maria.

Here's a view from the front.

And here's a look at the beautiful statues carved into the walls.

I'm now inside the cathedral. The statues are just amazing.

Pictures can't capture how huge this building is.

The first station of the cross.

A grave stone. Not sure whose...

A shrine to Our Lady.

A view across the transept. (From the left side of the church to the right.)

This is a reliquary containing the bones of the Three Magi. When pilgrims come to this church, this is one of the three things they come to see. The other two are

the Madonna of Milan, and

the Gero-Crucifix.

Downstairs is the Crypt and Sepulchre of the Archbishops of Cologne. Yup, I figured that out all by myself.

Ooh, a labyrinth. I hope I don't get lost.

No, most of it is gated off. I tried different settings on my camera to get good lighting, but

I didn't have much luck. Either everything is too dark, or everything behind the gate is too dark.

This pillar had something written about Pope John Paul II, but it was in German.

And this one said something about Pope Benedict XVI.

Outside the church, there was a fountain.

And a cool-looking Roman arch.

The Original Eau De Cologne.

(This caption brought to you by the Department of Unnecessarily Redundant Superfluousness.)

Check out this sculpture.

From this angle, it looks completely different.

And from this angle, it looks different still.

No, I'm just kidding. The sculpture moves. All three pictures were taken from the exact same spot.

Ooh, the LEGO Store!

It's like a candy store, but with LEGOs!

Here's Woody and me. More accurately, here's part of Woody's face and part of my face.

Somebody poisoned the water hole!

Star Wars and LEGO, the best combination since PB&J.

Lunch time, at the Eigel Cafe.

I'll have the Braumeister-Gulasch, please.

And a glass of Riesling.

(Here's my goulash.)

And for dessert? A strawberry milkshake. Yummy.

What is this?

Oh, that's what it is.

Check out this building. I believe it was partially destroyed in the war, and then rebuilt with a completely different kind of stone.

See?

And check out how short this door is. I'm not exactly the tallest individual, you know.

Ah, it's a church. St. Kolomba. Actually, it's a small chapel, surrounded by a museum.

There's a look inside the chapel.

Ooh, ruins!

Same ruins, different view.

In this spot, JFK spoke to the people of Cologne, exactly 5 months before his assassination.

Here's the city hall.

This is a fountain. (I am just full of information.)

Nice try, BP. You think you can just change your logo, and everyone will forget about that whole Gulf disaster?

Speaking of BP, what is this pipeline, and where does it go?

I shall follow it!

The pipe turns northeast! It's taking the hobbits to Isengard!

Oh, it's actually going...

Into the Rhine. But is it pumping something out of the river, or dumping something in? I'll never know.

Oh, while I'm at the Rhine, check out this bridge. It's the Hohenzollern Bridge, paid for by Kaiser Wilhelm II. It's the busiest railway bridge in the world. Apparently, 30 trains cross it every hour, all day long. My train crossed it too.

And this may or may not be Kaiser Wilhelm II. I should also point out at this time that the legend about how the number of legs a statue's horse has on the ground indicates how the person died--is false. While it's true in many cases, there are countless exceptions. Just check snopes.com for a more complete explanation.

This, Jess tells me, is a statue of a 7-layer cake, which is better than my theory: "I have no idea what this is." (The stone at ground level is the 7th layer, for those of you counting.)

This is St Martin's Church. It looks pretty cool on the outside. I bet it looks even cooler on the inside!

Oh, too bad it's closed on Mondays...

Well, that about wraps it up. I'll post about Frankfurt next. Tchüs!