Frankfurt- 10 hour layover

I had a ten hour layover in Frankfurt. And though most people would frown upon such a long layover I merely see it as a way to see another city practically for free! As we all now know Matt was supposed to be with me today. He’s been in Frankfurt before and is by far better than I in translating German. The little bits of German I know are mostly gleaned from watching Indiana Jones repeatedly and the Oktober fest that the amusement park in our neighborhood has every year. Oh also once I played Mrs. Frank in a production of Anne Frank. So suffice it to say I’m really good at shouting “schnell, schnell!” but that may not be something I want to go around yelling whilst lost.

Though I had been planning on relying on Matt pretty heavily on this part of the trip I didn’t want to miss out just because he wasn’t here. So I practiced saying “sprechen sie Englisch?” stored my bags in a locker and headed towards the pictures of trains that I figured must go into town.

Honestly how hard can trains be right? I mean I’ve been taking them since I was 15 and skipping school to go to Boston for the day. I was confronted with this:

Too many buttons! All in German! I’ve identified Frankfurt HBF as a central looking station on the train map. I’m not entirely sure if it’s near anything interesting but it looks promising. Problem: none of the buttons are labeled Frankfurt HBF. I stare for a while and watch other people buy their tickets and then I spy a helpful man in a red train worker vest. A moment later I have my ticket, I figure out which platform to wait on and I’m off!

Did you know that October 31 is when Frankfurt does their marathon? Since I don’t have a map of the city when I get out of the station I head towards the cheering and music that is pouring down the street and I discover this fact. I hang around and watch for a bit but I want to get past the marathon because if steeples are any indication it looks like the interesting part of town is a few blocks past the marathon. Problem is they have the whole area barricaded. I follow the crowd for a while, stopping to pick up a bratwurst with mustard, and I end up inside a building that appears to be the rock show like finish line for this marathon.


People are randomly shoving signs and giant blue phallic balloon things into my hands with which to cheer… so I do.

I finally find a map on the floor and get my bearings. I give up on trying to make it past the marathon and head in the other direction which conveniently is a scenic river.

The train ride back was just as adventurous. I pushed one of the three buttons that had a picture of a plane on it and the price was the same as it was getting here so I guessed it was right. There were several trains marked Flughafen which I think means airport or at least it’s sometimes paired with a picture of a plane so it should be ok. I jump on the next Flughafen train right before it leaves and then I freak out a little as it pulls out of the station. This train is WAY nicer then the train that got me to the station. It has dining cars and a first class. The train I took to get to Frankfurt HBF was a regular commuter looking train. But the signs still say something german-flughafen/airport so I wait for fifteen minutes until the next stop hoping that Frankfurt doesn’t have more than one airport. Yay! The next stop is and airport and it looks like the same one.

Well now just waiting on the last leg of my flight that will get me to Venice. I still haven’t figured out how I am getting to Hostel on an island at 11:30 pm on a Sunday. Oh well!