Dishevelled Travels. Germany. Part Two.

Day 4. Cologne to Frankfurt.

Up early to catch the Megabus to Frankfurt. While gathering my stuff as silently as possible in an attempt not to wake anybody (what a considerate guy) I notice that the girl in the bed opposite is totally naked and has partially rolled out of her sheets exposing a bare breast. Morning. 

Get a final dose of dance music from Station hostel as I eat breakfast (egg & sausage) to the time of nineties disco classic What is love? Good question. 

Pleasantly surprised by the Megabus. It was on time, relatively comfortable and had wifi. At £3 it’s an absolute bargain. It costs £2.70 for a return trip to the town centre back home which is a distance of about three miles and there’s always a motley crew of Jeremy Kyle guests and at least one bloke with soiled trousers on the number 65. No loonies on the Megabus. I now have much less trepidation about the seven hour overnight haulage to Munich tomorrow evening. The double decker coach arrives in Frankfurt so promptly that I have two hours to kill before check in at the hostel. 

Have a leisurely stroll into the heart of the city. Frankfurt is a modern city with glistening silver skyscrapers jutting into the stratosphere. It is home to the Central European Bank which is represented by a large statue of the Euro symbol. Frankfurt must rank just below Bongo Bongo land in the list of places Nigel Farage would want to go on holiday. As the centre of European finance Frankfurt is animated with bankers strutting around purposefully in immaculate suits. Even in this blistering summer heat there’s not an untucked shirt in sight. It’s all a bit serious. I bet there’s a booming trouser press trade here. 

Amongst the Rolex and Hugo Boss stores I find Engels which sells every type of offensive and potentially lethal weapon you could ever need for your maiming needs. From brass knuckles and inconspicuous flick knives to Schwarzengger style air rifles. Consider buying a deadly souvenir but I have an EasyJet flight to catch next week and I couldn’t find anything that wouldn’t result in lengthy interrogations and invasive cavity searches. I’m sure that airlines base their entire prohibited items list on the stock take at Engels.

Union Hostel has a large polished reception with three helpful staff on shift and a convertible Smart car on display in the lobby. It’s much more sophisticated than my previous accommodation in Cologne. I’ve been upgraded to the ten bed dorm. Bingo. There’s a lingering smell of body odour in the cramped room. More lighting problems. This time there’s no bedside lamp at all. The only other occupant of the tightly packed room is a middle aged oriental gentleman. He scratches himself vigorously and loudly. 

Venture out to the suburbs for a wander around Volkspark Niddatal. Clean. Well maintained. Not an empty crisp packet or used condom in sight. 

I think that I’ve been upgraded because there’s nobody else in the hostel. Had dinner (Frankfurters, naturally) in the spacious self kitchen and chill out lounge which resembles the abandoned mess hall of a battleship. All I have for company is a library of Stephen King novels, a heavy hardback copy of Die Bibel and a mouse which scurries from underneath the pool table which has no cues or balls. The wall is plastered with photographs of raucous parties taking place in this very room as if to mock me. If I get too bored I can always pop a few doors down to Dolly Buster’s XXX internet lounge (is there any other type of internet lounge?) which was enticing clientele by blasting out AD/DCs Highway to hell when I walked past, and peered in, earlier. 

Turns out that I’m actually spoilt for choice when it comes to perversity as the hostel backs onto a seedy red light district frequented by drug addicts and sinister looking street corner pimps. I see an elderly man limp through the mysterious beaded doorway of Eros which advertises “toys of optimum pleasure”. Even German butt plugs are efficient. Take solice in the fact that if things gets too desperately dull in Station Hostel I always have the option score some smack and sit on a brutal twelve inch dildo. Without lube. 

  
Day 5. Frankfurt. 

“If the immediate and direct purpose of our life is not suffering then our existence is the most ill-adapted to it’s purpose in the world”.

These are the bitterly cynical words of pessimist nineteenth century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860). I read them from his melancholic essay On the Suffering of the World while lingering over his subtle tombstone in Frankfurt Main Cemetery. The gravestones in this enormous park cemetery are meticulously maintained while the surrounding trees and bushes are allowed to flourish. The cemetery maintains a fine balance between allowing nature to blossom without decimating headstones. It’s incredibly tranquil and serene. Still I find myself sympathising with Arthur’s surly observations particularly regarding tedium.

“Want and boredom are the twin poles of human life.”

With twelve hours to kill in Frankfurt, the city where he retired to and died, I know exactly what he means. Having exhausted every free museum in the city I find myself without nothing else to do but head to the cemetery which is a staunch reminder that “our existence is so wretched and its end is death”. I’m glum. I didn’t get a great nights sleep as my oriental roomie snored like a mountain bear which had swallowed a megaphone. This morning he was scratching again. Loudly.

“We are conscious not of the healthiness of our whole body but only of the little place where the shoe pinches”

Or, in this case, where the thigh itches. Schopenhauer believed that life is driven by a constantly unsatisfied will which is forever searching for satiation that it can never fully attain. Pleasure is merely the absence of pain and we all have an itch that needs to be scratched. Some more urgently than others. Evidently. 

It’s midnight and I’m waiting at Frankfurk train station for a Megabus. It’s an hour late. I can’t help but ponder Schopenhauer’s exhortation to “imagine, in so far as it is approximately possible, the sum total of distress, pain and suffering of every kind of which the sun shines upon is in it’s course”. In this instance it’s the moonlight shining discourse but the sentiment holds. I see an emanciated topless junkie, ribcage poking through his skin, passed out on the pavement with his head resting on a plastic bag filled with a stained duvet. A shifty women eyes up potential pickpocket victims. I’ve seen her strike twice already. A group of alcoholics who, judging by the mountain of discarded beer bottles piled up by their makeshift cardboard box camp, have been boozing since dawn engage in a lively argument that I suspect I still wouldn’t be able to comprehend even if I understood German. A shivering old man on crutches is greatful when I hand him an empty Coca-Cola bottle. He’ll get 20 recents for recycling it. He carries a little collection of used bottles in a crate. All of this takes place to the backdrop of the PriceWaterhouseCooper tower which glows triumphantly. 

I feel a mixture of relief and guilt as, at 1am, I retreat into the safety of the Megabus to leave this sorry neighbourhood and continue my journey. As we pull I away I see the old man rummaging through an overflowing bin adding to his bottle collection. I wave but he doesn’t see because the windows are tinted. 

  

Esteban.