I’m done with Frankfurt (the fair), so now I can get back to enjoying Frankfurt (the city)! It was a pretty typical fair — a lot of positive noises from passers-by and interesting appointments and a large amount of boredom as well. On the Tuesday before the fair, though, I visited both the Senckenberg Natural History Museum and the Palmengarten.
The natural history museum was fun. I don’t think I’ve seen a triceratops skeleton up close very recently, and it was very amusing to imagine the reaction when the first one was discovered. Because, really — a monster! I also enjoyed looking at the bits of meteorite they had on display; it was hard to conceive of how far they had traveled when they looked just like. . . rocks. So, natural history: thumbs up.
The Palmengarten was pretty amazing, though. Not only were the leaves brilliantly coloured, but there were huge clumps of dahlias in bloom everywhere. The picture above is of a chrysanthemum (unopened) that was growing in one of the floral displays. Careful with the next photo, or Autumn will hit you right in the face:
Pretty incredible. As I had predicted in my last post, I woke up Tuesday morning with legs that barely functioned. I’ve had sore legs before, but this was something entirely new and more extreme. I’d really messed up the muscles/tendons at the front of my hips, and walking was. . . a challenge, and going up stairs was nearly impossible. My right leg was much more affected than the left, and I imagine I looked quite pathetic as I hobbled around that day. Luckily, five days of remaining stationary at the bookfair seems to have fixed me up.
This afternoon, I bailed out of the bookfair early and visited the Museum fur Moderne Kunst (apologies, but I don’t think Movable Type will allow an umlaut on the ‘u’ — just pretend it’s there). They have a huge Takashi Murakami exhibit on right now, and it was incredible. I swear the little explanations on the walls were better than any I’ve read before; they did and amazing job of explaining the depth of meaning in the pieces without sounding like they were complete BS. So well done, whoever writes those for a living.
So, now that all the worky bits have wrapped up, I’m very excited to get on with the fun stuff! Hooray fun!
That garden is stunning! So jealous!