The last days

There is no wind in Frankfurt. Something about the way the land lies, or the skyscrapers are arranged, means that when it's hot in town, the relief of a cool breeze enjoyed by city-dwellers of other more normally laid-out cities is denied to residents of Frankfurt, making the summer experience a potentially punishing one. The heat sits on you like a sweaty rucksack, and your shirt clings and exposes parts of you you hadn't planned to have on show. Today was an archetypal sweltering and windless day here. My back was throbbing from a sitting marathon that had lasted days and I was lonely, as the top few pals were all variously with partners, in home cities or working. I flip-flopped glumly between computer and piano, neither of which offered me the refreshment I really needed, and eventually decided to stroll aimlessly. The nostalgia is finally starting to set in, as it's hammered home to me by the double-figures-into-August date that I'll be leaving my beloved kitchen in my beloved flat and Frankfurt and Germany in just 10 days. It's not the kind of number of remaining days which can breezily be laughed off; brushed from the conversation with a merry turn of phrase like "oh, it's a couple of months yet". No, I'm really starting to have to work out exactly what's happening with each remaining evening to make sure I see everyone and do everything One Last Time. Anyway, to cut a very long story only moderately long, the stroll turned into the kind of wonderful evening that makes you shudder at the thought that you could have instead sat on Facebook or watched TV or whatever, and that every moment where you do choose to do those things is potentially a great time missed (my mind is always cast back, in self-reflective moments like these, to a particularly punishing scene in the mouse-based epic Fievel Goes West in which his whole family, whom Fievel's been desparately searching for for the majority of the film walk underneath him as he walks across a plank of wood, bemoaning his unlucky lot. This made a huge impression on me and a child, and I've since then had regular moments of thinking as my life as having some kind of audience with a better perspective on things who are screaming at the screen to get me to just turn around, or not log on to Facebook or to go to that party after all or whatever it may be.)

My stroll featured the following happy/fortuitous things which I would have otherwise missed out on, and which will help me to think fondly of the city I'm currently calling home once it's no more than a few folders full of digital photos, and a fast-fading recollection of the German language. The evening seemed to be no less humid than the day had been and I was glad I was myself as I said my traditional friendly hello to the chef working in the restaurant downstairs. It was hard to tell whether he was drenched in dishwater or sweat, but in either case, his job looked unenviable from the position of a man with rolled up trouser legs and a faint scent of sun cream. However hot the city may be, the banks of the river are always a welcome five degrees cooler. People were draped languidly along the length of the bank of the Main (it's pronounced 'mine' by the way, for those knot in the no) and the hushed calm atmosphere of an outdoor classical recital reigned as it always does in Germany when the people come together to enjoy a public space (I could never understand why no one rode their bikes through the middle of such crowds calling people wankers and spitting chewing gum at them. Apparently the young people haven't learned how to do that here.) As I crossed one of the beautiful bridges heading south I came across a jaunty couple of Americans busking some proper old-school rock and roll. I stood casually by with my hands in my pockets, trying to make it not look like I was having such a good time that I'd feel obliged to give them anything generous, when a young girl came leaping up to them and asked in a strong scouse accent if the gents knew any Beatles numbers. The Americans asked where she was from and she replied "Liverpool of course!" with a shriek. They played "Get Back" and she hopped from foot to foot in front of them in crazed excitment. I flipped them 50c as I left and told them I'd had at least 50c's worth of fun.

American Buskers : the Frankfurt skyline looks on aloofly

A young man riding haughtily upon a vehicle changing lightbulbs along the banks of the Main. Only in Germany could this be someone's job.

The sun was pretty low by this point and I headed west along the south bank of the Main and felt jealous of the endless groups of well-prepared folk sitting on comfy rugs and smoking shisha. I treated myself to a doner from a floating kebab shop to make up for it, and felt somewhat better about things. I walked down past the Staedel museum and saw a beautiful restaurant I'd never seen - a huge glass front with pink lights inside, making things look deliciously seedy. I walked though the gate and thought I'd just have a look in at the diners. As I stood there gawping, a tiny child ran up to me out of nowhere making a kind of throaty deep humming noise. He stopped as he got to my legs and looked up at me, my face peering back at him from what, from his height, must have looked like beyond the clouds. He contemplated me silently for a moment and we looked at one another. He then started to run around me in circles laughing with delight as he ran. The Maitre D' turned out to be his mother, and she came running down the front steps embarrassedly and said "Oh I'm sorry. He doesn't normallly do this. I think he likes you!" I remained staning like a grinning maypole for a few more revolutions and then the little boy's orbit slingshotted him off to his mum where he pressed his face into her thighs. I wished her a pleasant evening and walked off, thoroughly delighted.

As so often happens in this city, I discovered some unusual and fantastic architecture hidden unboastfully away around an otherwise familiar corner. I used to maintain that this happened every time I ventured out into the city, but there are physical limits to even the most secretive city's hidden gems. This particular corner of town consisted exclusive of enormous old buildings (this means properly old, not the favourite reconstructed old of these parts). I wandered open mouthed throughout the area and as I looked up at the rickety 3rd story bay windows, bats flew silently from tree to tree.

I crossed back over the river, back into the cooking-pot heat of the city proper, and got the tram home. I picked up my bike and headed to Sachsenhausen, a party-friendly bar part of town where you can always see amusing groups of marauding stag/hen party-goers dribbling kebab sauce onto the cobbled streets or eyeing up the ludicrously proportioned waitresses at Hooters. I went to a favourite little bar of mine, where there's a piano in the corner and patrons are encouraged to entertain. I was disappointed by the fact that there were only about 6 people in the place and no one was playing the joanna, but I needn't have been, since that's precisely what made the ensuing musical feast such a wonderful and intimate affair. It turned out that all the punters were musicians, and we were particularly dazzled by an Irish guy (in Frankfurt since 1987!) who played the guitar and sang traditional Irish stuff most beautifully, and a gruff, broad german man, who turned to a cheeky Puck when a fiddle was put in his hand, and he crept sprightlily about playing the most fantastic fiddle to our Irish friends guitar activity. I pulled out a few of my party pieces and people sang along and said I was good. I left the place at one with a couple of beers in my belly, and a warm glow of music, merriment and a growing nostalgia for a city that's soon to become my ex-place of dwelling. Goodbye Frankfurt, it's been fun.

The kind of silly stuff we often got up to: Flatmate Marcus planing the feet of our kitchen chairs with a hunk of stale bread wrapped in sand paper. What else?