Frankfurt am Main -- Or how modern art continues to baffles me

            Yesterday, we went on a trip to Frankfurt, which is approximately an hour away from Marburg, to go to the Summer Museum Festival.  You may also remember that Frankfurt is the city I flew into on August 4^th so my initial memories of the city were colored significantly by my exhaustion and post-travel stress.

            Unfortunately, this journey did not start off much better.  Our bus left for Frankfurt at 8:00 AM, which meant I had to get up at 6:45 AM to get ready.  Now this time isn’t truly terrible if I’m honest with you (and if I’m not honest in my blog, then where else would I be honest?  Don't answer that).  Lots of people have to get up earlier than that on a daily basis.  In my defense though, 3-5 hours of intense German language school plus homework every day can really take it out of you.  The weekend is the only time we usually have to sleep in so every morning of sleeping-time we lose is quite distressing.  Motivating myself to get out of bed on a Saturday is possibly one of the hardest feats of willpower.  Pretty much every bone in your body is perfectly content to stay in bed and not see another city in Germany, because SLEEP.

Post-language course collapse.

            In addition, you’re traveling with Americans.  The problem with traveling with Americans is that you just KNOW they’re going to be late.  Yes, you are an American, and YOU are going to be on time, but the others traveling with you haven’t gotten the memo that Germans are super punctual and being late is not at all fashionable.  If they’re late, you can be late, right?

            WRONG.  Faulty logic alert!  Faulty logic alert!!  It’s a vicious cycle.  Don’t be fooled!  If you fall for this logic, then ALL THE AMERICANS WILL BE LATE.  This is how stereotypes are perpetuated.  That being said, we left Marburg at 8:10 AM.  Guess why...
            The bus trip was uneventful, although it was my first time on the Autobahn during this trip to Germany.  The weather was gorgeous: sunny and scattered white puffy clouds (which will be important later today).

          The tour bus stopped by the Römer, conveniently located next to a Starbucks.  After a quick Starbucks stop for the homesick Americans and equivalent bakery stop for the gung-ho “being in Germany where bakeries are everywhere is still a novelty” Americans, the group of Fulbright students split into two: one group that would take an English tour through the city and the other group that would take the German tour.  I joined the German tour group, eager to see how much I could understand at this point in time.  You’ll note that this is a significantly improved reaction to the German language in comparison with my encounter on the train three weeks ago.

Some of my fellow Fulbright students enjoying the German tour of Frankfurt.

            The tour was led by a very nice German woman, who took pity on us and spoke slowly and enunciated carefully.  She was quite easy to understand with only a few of her sentences escaping my understanding.  The most interesting fact I learned about Frankfurt was its large history of reconstruction.  Almost every famous building you see on a guided tour like this was rebuilt.  World War II bombings by the Allies destroyed a significant portion of the major buildings in Frankfurt.  Reconstruction of different areas continues today.  There isn’t a section of Frankfurt that does not have a large crane rising over the rubble or run-down ruins of an old building.  At the end, we got a great view of the city and the perpetual reconstruction from the top of a gigantic shopping mall.

A perfect example of old and new Frankfurt behind me.  How many cranes can you spot?

            There were a surprising number of street artists in the square in front of the Rathaus (city hall), including several who appeared to be levitating.  There was also a man playing what appeared to be steel drums.  He was definitely more impressive than the levitators, as he did not have a skeptical group of Fulbright students determining how “levitation” was a trick surrounding him.  What can I say?  This is what happens when you get a bunch of young students together in a group in a foreign country.  We are determined not to be tricked into awe; something must be genuinely awe-inspiring.

My reaction to seeing "levitating" men.  Once a scientist, always a skeptic.

            After puzzling through a solution to the levitating men, a group of my fellow Fubright students and I stopped in a riverside Café for lunch and enjoyed some Middle Eastern inspired-fare.  My “Pasta Al Arrabiata” was delicious and, even more importantly, contained absolutely no potatoes in any form, a difficult feat for any meal purchased in Germany.

            Post-lunch we all picked museums to visit for the rest of the afternoon.  The Summer Museum Festival in Frankfurt is like the Sommer Fest in Marburg on crack: fifty times bigger, incredibly loud, and packed with Germans and tourists.  The coolest part of the festival is that entrance to ALL of the museums for the whole day requires the purchase a single four Euro button.  Four Euros for entrance into over 60 museums!  It’s a geek’s dream come true!

Welcome to the Staedel Museum! ...and temporary biergarten?

            I went to the Städel Museum of Art and spent three hours wandering through the halls with two Fulbright students.  The museum had some spectacular pieces of old art, some pieces of art that were just old, and some pieces that were neither spectacular nor old.  On that note, modern art is a genre that continues to elude my understanding.  If I could have created the same piece of art myself, why is it art when someone else does it.  For example, one of the special exhibits was of one man’s fingerprints.  Just fingerprints.  What?

            Some of the ancient art was amazing: the Rembrandt and Remeer paintings blew me away.  However, some of the artists seemed to need a lesson in body proportions.  Dear ancient artists, a baby’s leg should be bigger than the baby’s head unless something is terribly wrong with said child.  In addition, just because you think someone’s head looks small, doesn’t mean you should draw it WAY smaller than the rest of the body.  Or maybe you should.  I mean, hey…you still got into one of the premier museums in Germany.  Who am I to talk?

            Just wait, I’ll fingerprint myself or draw a disproportionate baby someday, and then I’ll be famous for sure.  Actually, I’m pretty sure I’ve done both of these things, and I’m still not famous.  Maybe I need to rethink my “get-famous-quick” plan.

Dear modern art piece, I'm not sure I know what you are, but I'm pretty sure you'll haunt my sleep for the next week or so.

            After alternating between quietly contemplating and snickering our way through the Städel, we continued to another café (see a pattern?) for Nutella crepes and tea to avoid the pouring rain that had descended on the city.  Told you to keep an eye on those fluffly white clouds from before… Our time was soon up, and we said “Wiedersehen!” to Frankfurt before hoping on our bus back to Marburg.