Well I realise there's a slight lack of consistency creeping into the blog here, at least on the regularity front, but don't take it personally folks, there literally wasn't an opportunity to open the laptop the last couple of days. I've had important things to do. Playing gigs, catching up with friends, and attending German Yoga classes for example - the latter being an interesting experience when you don't understand the language, even moreso when an attempted handstand topples forward and nearly kills the girl in front of you. But you know, I learned the words for inhale and exhale, a sequence which was repeated at far greater frequency following the aforementioned incident, and fortunately 'sorry' is a word used just as much over here as the local alternative - Tschuldigung (easier to say than it looks, thank god) - and when uttered with a gesture of conciliation and a good old fashioned Aussie smile, all is forgiven. At least it seemed to be. I didn't understand what she was mumbling under her breath. Anyway where were we? Yes Frankfurt - the city where old meets new, as you may have gathered but the photo, touched up ever so slightly with the help of Instagram. (Anyone else on that? Come find me!).
The curious thing about Frankfurt, as was pointed out to me last night, is that it's really the only German city with a 'Skyline' in that typical CBD sense. Fans of progressive architecture would be thrilled. Not unlike the odd touring musician who's been looking at 12th century churches for the past 6 weeks. But I jest of course, as I said in my last entry I don't think I could tire of seeing these beautiful old European cities. It's just that Frankfurt has an air of sophistication about it that is somehow alluring, albeit in a completely different way to the more traditional towns I've been visiting.
So to the main purpose of my visit which, in addition to learning hand stands in German, was catching up with my good mate the
brother Eastwood, swapping a few travellin tales (that's the name of his
new album by the way, it's brilliant....) and performing a great little house concert Friday night for a few folks Kent had met whilst busking a few weeks ago (thanks Svenja for the pic!). We also managed a spot of busking ourselves earlier in the day, which ended up being a rehearsal of sorts for the evening's performance, also a little test of endurance on account of the arctic chill that is slowly creeping in over here. I draw the line when my feet start to go numb, say nothing of the fingers which become incredibly useless for anything other than rapid strumming in these situations (cf.
this song I wrote in the Irish winter). But we survived an hour or so at Merianplatz, and the concert later that night was great fun. Turns out one of the flatmates had a nice keyboard we were able to use, so there we were, two old mates from Sydney, doing the same thing we've been doing together for years, only this time in someone's bedroom in Frankfurt, in front of 30 or so people we barely knew. Cheers to that. What a trip. Will look forward to more of the same in the future, wherever in the world we might be...
Thanks to everyone who came along, thanks to the brother Eastwood for a great couple of days, and thanks to Jasmin and the rest of his flatmates for having me to stay. For those of you who don't know the story, Kent met Jasmin at Circular Quay whilst waiting for the bus to Newtown. A year or so later he's now living in Frankfurt with a German girlfriend. How about that. See you in the summer guys. Love from Dusseldorf x
PS - This blog was typed on my iPhone en route by foot to meet good friends from Amsterdam in the heart of Dusseldorf. Dutch friends I know from Australia, Bo even played saxophone on my last record when she was there.
True, have a listen..! We truly are an international community.
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