the pink panther as a possible omen for what was to come?
or was the omen actually a mean-looking skull?
what is she talking about?, you might ask. well, dear friend, i am talking about falling in love. which was something that happened to me in august last year ( which now feels like a lifetime ago again... ). remember, in one of my former posts ( i think the frankfurt one a few weeks ago - which actually matches this one in terms of content ), how i randomly hinted that a dude messaged me and asked for a meet-up? and how i was super anxious about the whole prospect, because: stranger ( albeit not entirely, as we had talked quite a bit for a while prior to our meeting ) and me = super shy?
in the end, i did take the leap and said yes and agreed to a meeting, telling myself it was a friendly encounter and not interpreting something ulterior into it - like taking photos together, talking more in real life, enjoying our surroundings. a simple getting acquainted. nothing to be scared of. it might spark a wonderful friendship or introduce a photo buddy ( if you're wondering, we met through instagram, so our base was photography first ). that was the mindset i brought into this meet-up.
it turned out to spark a short romance of three months, most of it magical and lofty and wonderful and it made me feel like i was walking on clouds most of the time, nothing facing me, even though those clouds would turn grey in the future, which i didn't take very serious when they happened to float over us ( only realized this after it was over again, very abruptly and surprisingly for me ).
after 10 years of living on my own and never dating throughout that time, it felt like the universe had opened a door for me. i felt we clicked very well together, had equal interests and i also thought that we were both pretty level-headed, down-to-earth, which is important to me, because even though i love to daydream, i am a really practical person and very rational at that, and getting together with someone who is in some surreal clouds all the time isn't my idea of leading a meaningful relationship. well, and there was a spark between us from the get-go ( at least i thought so ).
we met up in a suburb of wiesbaden - auringen, where there is a hiking trail around the village we wanted to go for a walk on. he brought figs as a gift, which i found very sweet of him. his appearance was whimsical, a tall guy, very lanky, with an imp-ish smile on his face and a cheeky glow in his eyes. a friendly man, also a little shy at first, but opening up more and more as we talked. the weather was pretty warm ( almost too warm ) and we were happy about whatever shadows we could get, especially in the woods. we both took photos along the way, and discovered tiny details together, sat down on random benches in the field and laughed about funny stuff ( i can't even remember it anymore, i just remember that i was very happy with the laughing together and enjoyed it so much ). when our first meeting ended i felt great, because it had been so nice! we decided to meet again, maybe for a movie night, as we discovered that we both were interested in films and cinematography. but before i jump to that meeting, here are some photos of our first one, and surprisingly i didn't even shoot a lot! guess, i was distracted with talking and focussing on this new person next to me :P
there's a pond nearby auringen that is always covered in water lilies and it is very peaceful and tranquil. we sat down there for quite a while and talked and took in the quietude of it all.
from time to time some dragonflies were visiting us near the bank we were sitting. turns out they were ruddy darters! their bright red bodies glowed in the sunlight.
dare i say it? taking pictures of insects, especially small ones, that turn out to be very sharp and showcase their beauty very well, is something i never get tired of.
after a while we circled the little pond and i soon discovered another inhabitant...
... can you spot the turtle? it's not a native one, it's actually a yellow-bellied slider! i don't know how she got into a forest pond of the taunus mountains, and how she is able to survive german winters, as this species is actually accustomed to more tropical waters such as there exist in florida and virginia. but there she was, and she was enjoying her life in there.
as we left the nearby woods we passed by some cute benches underneath fruit trees.
and sat down on this particular one, with its lovely carvings. the little desk in front of it was also beautifully made.
after we had rested for quite some time we moved back towards our initial meeting point and walked through the village of auringen. this ivy-covered building caught my eye in an instant.
and my last picture was of delicious-looking grapes!
after our successful first meeting we were both keen on meeting up again soon, like a week later, and we would drive to frankfurt to go see 2001: a space odyssey by stanley kubrick in a very special place: the german film museum. we explored more of frankfurt that day and visited some places i had visited just one month earlier. it was such a wonderful evening and realization struck me that i was falling for him pretty quickly.
the holbeinsteg - a pedestrian bridge that links the district of sachsenhausen ( where the film museum is situated ) to bahnhofsviertel on the other side of the main river. the bridge was built in 1990 by albert speer jun. - yes, a son of THE albert speer, who was a minister of the reich ministry of armaments and war production towards the end of nazi germany and was one of hitler's favourite architects. the son however, while never been very talkative about his father's history, even though recognizing the wrongdoings of his actions, went on to make a great career all over the world, creating lots of modern buildings and helped with city planning. his legacy ( unlike his father's ) is still visible today, in several parts of the world.
frankfurt is full of contradictions, as this comparison shows - skyscrapers on one side, timber-framed villas on the other. this is the former coach house of the villa metzler.
inside the film institute. the bathroom looked really futuristic, and was perfectly fitting to the mood of stanley kubrick's space odyssey. peak the woman who brushed her teeth next to me, while i tried to take a decent photo 😂
i had watched space odyssey before, but seeing it on the big screen made the visuals even more stunning and captivating, especially in addition to the splendid score. also, watching it with him was exhilarating and intensified my growing fondness for him, obviously loving visually stunning and complicated movies, just like me. we talked a lot that day about movies, especially old ones and what genres we liked. we had a similar taste when it came to movies.
i also showed him some of my favourite areas in frankfurt ( how could i not, when the film museum was directly next to my favourite neighborhood, the areas next to the main river ) and he learned that i was a complete architecture buff, as i gushed over all the buildings that night. we had a good time taking photos of the sceneries, talking about everything and nothing. it was another joyful meeting that made me ( or us ) want more, i guess. i felt we vibed so very well together, both loving to explore places and bonding over tiny details.
after the movie we took a stroll along the river. frankfurt put on another blue hour show for us, and it felt like a present.
the westhafen tower and IG metall regional management facility bathed in pastel cotton.
the contrast between old church tower and new skyscraper is seriously so stimulating. church of the three kings and ECB tower.
we walked over the untermainbrücke to get to the other side of the river. the sight of the skyscrapers is always staggering.
the view up the river, into the direction of the city center and brückenviertel. on the right side you can see the museumsufer ( museum bank - because all along the shores you can find several of the most important museums in frankfurt - such as the film museum, but also the städel, or architecture museum and many more ). on the left you see, what was once the germ cell of frankfurt, with the old city and its highest building, the frankfurt cathedral.
the river draws a bow behind the iron bridge, so you can't see that the ECB tower is actually on the north side of the river, not right next to the church of the three kings ( which is situated on the south side bank ). sometimes perspectives are so strange. even finding a proper term for orientational purposes is difficult when your eyes tell you something totally different. but would you please appreciate the sun down reflection on the glass window facade of the tower? it elevates this picture multiple times, isn't it? 😍
when you look into the direction of sachsenhausen, you can find even more juxtapositions . like the new henninger tower greeting you behind an old villa which is now part of the world culture museum. that tower was formerly a grain silo before it was torn down in 2013 and rebuilt afterwards. now it houses luxury apartments, but i think you can still climb up to the top where there is a restaurant.
maintor panorama tower. ( finished in 2015 and designed by christoph mäckler ). the blue hour was going on strong here.
okay, so by now you are probably guessing it - i did not only fall in love with a guy that evening but also the city of frankfurt. i remember always disliking frankfurt in the past, not getting warm with it because of its magnitude, but now that i've been there so often, especially in the evenings, i developed some mushy feelings for this city as well. frankfurt finally changed my opinion, and it is now a sexy night city to me :P look at the ECB tower still sporting the sunset facade! deliciously good 😍
hitting up the historical museum once again, this time not in complete darkness. the rhomb facade still fascinates me.
the timber-frame building in the back is wertheim house - the only still standing original half-timbered house of the former old inner city core ( the rest of the medieval core was bombed out in world war II - built over with 50ies functional buildings and brutalist representative architecture of the 70ies, which then also were torn down later to create space for the re-creation of the former old city ). it was built in 1600. it now houses a traditional restaurant.
the backyard of the historical museum is so damn romantic, isn't it?
we moved forward to check out the new 'old city' and passed by this be-windowed building that's also part of the historical museum. so cute!
the re-created old city ( dom-römer project ), was finally finished when we visited it and i think it left us both in awe. they reconstructed 15 historical buildings and 20 modern ones with nods to the historical quarter and it now is such a cozy piece of the inner city! i have never seen the former condition of the area, only seen pictures, but wandering around the brandnew tiny alleys and crooked nooks, passing by marvellous historical buildings... i couldn't quite grasp the change and arrange it with the pictures i've seen. ( i still would like to go back in time, though and see the technical city hall - because brutalism? i only learned to love that style when it was already destroyed and the reconstructions were in full swing ) this gorgeous sculpture is part of house lämmchen ( lambkin ) - which was originally built in 1911 - that's why the style of the sculpture is not very medieval. i like that they even reconstructed buildings that were already reconstructions of their former selves. it's like when you look in a mirror and see yourself looking in a mirror seeing yourself looking in a mirror seeing yourself. makes you dizzy? well, the whole reconstruction thing is a confusing game, i suppose. madame still looks very enticing and alluring - and to me she looked like i felt inside, cough, cough.
the courtyard of haus lämmchen also had some nice balcony and door action going on.
another cute detail, a very modern ( and bauhaus-y looking ) door embellishment of house 'goldenes haupt' ( golden head ). it reminds me of wassily kandinski paintings.
the hühnermarkt ( chicken market/square ) with friedrich-stoltze-brunnen ( a fountain dedicated to writer friedrich stoltze ). it was so cool to visit this in the evening because the alleys were almost deserted. when do you ever get a frankfurt scenery without any people in it? right, it is actually almost impossible.
they even incorporated an entrance to the underground trains in the style of when the u-bahn was created ( in the 1960ies ). loved this aaaaaaa looooot.
more cute reconstructed houses, but not after original plans. i really like the cantilevered levels of the houses.
probably the most beautiful of all the reconstructed historical houses: haus zur goldenen waage ( house of the golden scale ). it's very close to the frankfurt cathedral ( which you can see on the left - the beautifully illuminated building ). it was erected in 1619 first and wins you over with an extraordinary renaissance facade! and the details - they make me want to scream at the house. as in: HOW DARE YOU BE SO FUCKING GLORIOUS AND PLEASING?!
and because the illumination of st. bartholomew's made me happy, here's a better picture of the cathedral, which is super important for the identity of frankfurt, as it once was a coronation church for the emperors of the holy roman empire. the history of the cathedral goes way back to merowingian times ( 600s ), however the current building is the 5th church construction in this place and was finished in 1239 ( every other renovations done after that date were extensions and upgrades ).
after dillydallying around for quite some time, we decided to head back and call it a night. not without saying hello to the commerzbank tower, though. frankfurt is a city of constructions, so to see streets like these full of barriers is a pretty common thing.
also passed by the town archive, which proudly announced that it exists since 1436. it's basically a city museum :) it's situated inside a former carmelite convent.
a few last views of the main river at night, which concluded our second meeting. it was a very balmy and gorgeous evening, and seriously everything felt like pure magic. i couldn't even believe that this all was happening to me.
following this meeting the affair took a faster route, and we quickly discovered that we both were starting to develop a deeper likening for each other. i consider our first meeting in frankfurt basically the first actual 'date'. i will always have very fond memories of that day, the day that i realized i was falling in love and maybe would even end up in a relationship if i was lucky.
a look up the sky while being on the holbeinsteg revealed interesting tensions, which were increasingly transfered onto our own interactions.
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