These links are blogs from the road:
I said I wanted to tell you more about the Museum Für Kommunication. As we walked up there was a gang of teenagers standing around out front drinking espresso and smoking cigarettes. They looked like they were about 12.
The communications museum has the history of the postal service and telecommunications. It's divided into sections: writing, radio, TV, Internet, telephones, postal service. I think I'm forgetting something. As soon as we get in there Bob says, "Communications and Media studies is my favorite thing. I'm reading a book about it at home." It sounds dorky but it was super cool the way they had it layed out with tons of historical stuff like old postal carriages and old black and white movies showing the first postal deliveries overseas. Also exhibits on the first transatlantic communications-including communications about the Titanic.
One thing about Frankfurt in general is that it's a pretty grimy place. Tons of graffiti and early on I suggested that Frankfurt was pretty unorganized for a Germany city. (e.g. the late SBahn to the airport mentioned earlier.) This was confirmed by a story at the museum about when the Frankfurt City Court moved in 1889 and they found a bag of letters that had been sitting there unnoticed for 300 years. Yes, 300 years. That's pretty lame. They say that the letters were stolen or set aside by strike or confiscated for some reason. I think they needed a better janitorial staff. Regardless, they have the actual letters at the museum and the topics are boring: money transfers for exotic goods and stuff like that. But the handwriting is gorgeous.
Upstairs they had a chronological exhibit of TVs playing various videos and commercials. I don't know what the exact parameters were but seemed to be ground breaking in some way. I saw the entire Apple 1984 commercial for the first time and also the Madonna "Like a Prayer Pepsi" commercial which was very sweet and not remotely controversial. There wasn't enough time to see it all.
And speaking of time, I'm sure you have better things to do than spend half the day reading this stuff so I'll go on.
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