Day 1
Saturday, midday arrival in Frankfurt
The legend on the Alte Oper states “Dem Wahren, Schönen, Guten” — “To the true, the beautiful, the good”.
Because of our turnaround to Boston, the first flight group arrived into Frankfurt about the same time as the second group, who had left Cleveland almost seven hours after us. After navigating customs and baggage claim and stopping to file a lost baggage claim for one member, we got to the hotel around 11:30. Our rooms were not yet ready, so we headed out to explore and find someplace appetizing for lunch.
The group that would hang out together throughout the trip was comprised of my roommate, Ginger Mateer, and her car pool buddies, Tim and Lisa Manning, who drive together from Wellington, OH, each week to rehearsals. While waiting in Atlanta for our transatlantic flight, we caught up with fellow chorister Martie Truby, and her adult daughters, Kate and Mandy. Kate had come from Columbus, and Mandy from Pittsburgh, sacrificially leaving their husbands and daughters at home so that they could join their mother for the tour. Kate and Mandy had grown up in Wellington and knew Ginger, Lisa, and Tim very well. It was like old home week for them, and they graciously allowed me to tag along. I was very thankful!
We thought we would head toward the river—the Main–but a wrong turn and a midcourse correction took us to the Zeil, which is the pedestrian mall that runs through the part of town that lies north of the river. Several restaurants were sited down the center of the Zeil, and we chose Weidenhof for traditional local fare—brats and so on.
After lunch, the group wanted to follow a walking tour that Lisa had found in her research, but I excused myself. I was a woman on a German mission: 1) I had purchased a beautiful, chunky clear glass bud vase in a Karstadt department store in Mannheim (same area of Germany) in 1972 and lost it in my first divorce. What was the possibility that this Karstadt would have a similar item 40+ years later? Worth checking out!; and 2) I remembered that many department stores in Europe carry yard goods, so I set off to see what fiber trouble I could get into. None of the vases struck my eye, so I headed up the escalator to the top floor. Aha—a great selection of fabric plus buttons to die for; I picked up one t-shirt’s worth of a knit similar to one of my favorite creations of this year. After my shopping, I headed back to the hotel. Our chorus manager, Jill, quietly came over and told me the hotel was short on rooms that met our exact specifications, asking if Ginger and I would mind sharing a king bed. I sleep every night on about 18″ of bed, so didn’t see a problem. Soon our keys were available and I found my bags and headed to our room.
When I walked in and saw the size of the bed, I was certain they had given us the wrong room. This was no king bed. I wasn’t even sure it as a queen. It looked barely larger than a double to me. As I headed back down to the front desk to correct the error, I peeked into the room of some of my colleagues who were in the same situation. They had been told this was a “European King”-size bed. (Picture Napoleon, if you will. This was a small bed.) A number of the chorus members had talked before the tour and we were determined to ease Jill’s stress as much as possible. I figured Ginger and I could handle this situation for two days.
The decal on the bathroom mirror: “Nice to see you today.”
Cute!
I had taken a shower and changed for dinner when I realized I had left part of my makeup at home. The rest of my group was back from their walk, so while Ginger showered and dressed, I walked back over to Karstadt to visit the Clinique counter. Toner and moisturizer in hand, I headed back and we got together to decide on dinner.
A local speciality is apple wine. The restaurant that is famous for this unique and acquired taste is Apfelwein Wagner, across the river from our hotel. We cabbed over and were able to get a table fairly quickly. We noticed a number of our chorus colleagues finishing their meals.
Apfelwein [Wiki link] is a traditional German hard cider that tastes—to me—almost like beer. It is served in a distinctive pitcher, called a Bembel. (My gift for Dear Son #1, who has a keychain collection, was a miniature Apfelwein pitcher keychain.) Along with the wine, the server brings sparkling water. The diner (drinker?) mixes the two liquids together to taste in a glass and that mixture is consumed with one’s meal. At least that’s the suggestion.
Because of my propensity for migraines, I am very careful what I eat and drink. I had a little taste of the concoction and deferred the rest of my portion to my table mates.
For our meal, we ordered a house speciality, the Frankfurt platter. This platter, holding every-part-of-pig-known-to-man, was loaded down with grilled pork knuckle, spare ribs, salted ribs, grilled pork belly, and sausages. Alongside this platter came large bowls of sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, and home-fried potatoes. Honestly, I don’t think I had ever seen so much meat (or pig) in one place at one time. What did I like about the meal? Umm, the sauerkraut and the fried potatoes.
I can’t tell you if we had dessert. By this time I was so tired all I wanted to do was go to the hotel and fall into bed. I had been awake for most of the previous 30 hours.
Day 2
Sunday, walking the city and first concert
Sunday was a concert day, but we wanted to see as much of the city as we could. Our group met for breakfast, then headed out to meet the guide for “Frankfurt on Foot” along Berliner Straße, near the Röm (City Hall since 1405) and Römerplatz (old town square). [See a list of the sites we visited.] We were very lucky to have gotten this tour guide. Sam had been born in England to an English mother and an American G.I. father. He had spent much of his life in the Los Angeles area and spoke fluent American English. He was enthusiastic, enjoyable, and easy to understand—and absolutely filled with knowledge of the history of the area.
I am not a natural student of history, tending to zone out when the facts come flying at me. So I knew very little about Frankfurt, although this was my third visit to the city. Two areas of their history really captured my attention: the destruction that was wrought during the Second World War (“In World War Two, aerial attacks destroyed almost all of the old and central parts of the city. “), and the horrible persecution of the Jews (“Under the National Socialist regime, 9000 Jews were deported from Frankfurt.”) [Read more.] [See this page for more excellent information about the Holocaust memorial in Frankfurt.] And one more site with excellent information. A reporter’s journal of a visit to the memorial.
I found the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Wall (a very personal memorial that the city of Frankfurt has created, to honor the memory of the 12,000 Frankfurt Jewish Citizens who lost their lives during the Holocaust, including Anne, Margot and Edith Frank) to be devastating and yet wonderful. Wonderful that these individuals whose names are installed along the wall were not lost to history. Devastating that so many individuals were killed or lost their lives because of the persecution. As Sam was telling about the names on the wall, he chose a marker at random and read the name, the dates of birth and death, and the cause of death. The surname on this marker was “Singer.” One of the women in our group—one of our chorus colleagues—has the surname Singer. For me, it made the wall all the more real. The thought that one of our friend’s husband’s relatives could have lived in Frankfurt and taken her own life to escape the persecution. Many of us had tears in our eyes as we left this area.
The tour, normally about three hours in length, went on for over four hours. I was very glad we had chosen this activity, but I was tired and walking with a minor limp by the end of the walk. Ginger, Lisa and Tim wanted to lunch with Sam at a well-known local restaurant, Paulaner. But I was worried about being able to get back to the hotel in time to dress for the concert without hurting my knee further. So I took off on my own and stopped at Zeil Kebap, near the hotel, for a salad. Serendipitously, Eiscafe Alberto was midway between Zeil Kebap and the hotel. Of course I had to have a dish of ice cream. (I am known to complain about the serving size of ice cream at Handel’s Ice Cream in Youngstown. Eiscafe Alberto offered one medium-sized scoop for 1 Euro. Perfect! Why can’t American ice cream shops be this smart?)
Our three busses of singers loaded and headed to the northwest corner of the city to the Alte Oper for warm-up, acoustic rehearsal and a 7:30 performance. I was skeptical about a Sunday night audience, but the hall was well-filled and the audience was appreciative. At intermission, we boarded the busses again, went back to the hotel and changed, and a number of us met in the hotel bar for appetizers and drinks.
The hotel bar was simply not equipped for the number of people who showed up, and getting food and drink took at least an hour longer than it should have! Add to that the fact that our waiter was a trainee, and you can understand our frustration with that evening’s food experience.
Still feeling jet-lagged, I headed upstairs and to bed as quickly as possible. Our busses would load early the next morning to take us to the train that would transport us to Paris.
Concert reviews
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Frankfurter Neue Presse — Apologies to readers who are not members of Facebook. That’s the only place these translations from the German are available.
Frankfurter Allgemeine
Photo credits
Traditional Apfelwein pottery, Bembel: alt=”© http://ralfbarthelmes.com/”
