Frankfurt in so many words

By Azalea Silva 

            When we arrived to Frankfurt we went directly to the central bank of Germany. There we met with our tour guide that would give us a presentation about the goals and reason of existence of the bank. The bank its self looked like any other bank on the outside but we quickly learn that it was not the case. The central bank caters to governments and other banks rather than the public and businesses. The main goal of this central bank was to regulate prices, they do not want prices to go to far down and  to rise very high. My guess is that Germans and everyone is fearful of their money becoming so depreciated that it is better to burn it for warmth than buy actual wood with it.

            After the presentation we went to the money museum. There the first thing that greet it us was a cow to represent the bartering system. After a short information on how the museum is set up, we where free to go around it. There was a section that was devoted to coins and money from the past and present, in that section there was two gold bars to represent the gold bars that the central bank of Germany had in its country and in different places around the world. The gold bar was very impressive, since I had never seen one before, one's worth was around the millions and the other around the thousand; but that was not the most impressive part of the coin collection. There was a coin from when Greece was the most powerful place in the world, it was one of the smallest coins and the tour guide told me that during that time women used to put their money

in their mouths when they went shopping. That made me remember the story or myth about how the Grecian people believed that a dead person could not cross to the after life if they did not have two gold coins inside their mouth. There was also a very impressive coin of when Julius Cesar got assassinated by the republic on the steps of congress. I cannot remember exactly if it was to commemorate this time or it was done during that year. It was just very impressive to have in front of me so much history, like that coin there where many other coins of different nations and eras. Another surprising thing that the museum had was the security codes that the Euro has. It has many and very different from the U.S dollar but to be truthful they remind me of the money in Mexico, it has many of the same security for their money. When I mention this to my dad he said it was because Mexico helped with the security of the Euro. I do not know this for sure and even though I have research it, nothing about the design of the Euro has come up.

            Posterior to the tour in the bank we went for a tour of the city. Frankfurt in my opinion has a different

feel to it, it is not like a normal city in Europe, it does not have many old buildings everywhere and there is only one height allowed. It is a combination of olden times with modern, all the old looking buildings where built after the war  but the important part is the new building. The new buildings look like buildings in any city of the world, they are amazing in their architectural structure but also they are pretty. The are not the eye sore many old buildings are, they are beautiful and some how in a strange way flow with the old buildings. They do not fight for attention but rather share it, that is the beautiful part of Frankfurt, you could be so rounded by old building and you turn the corner and be in the shopping district with a building that has a hole in it. The shopping district has many of the beautiful buildings, starting with the one that has a skylight in the middle of it, or the one next to it that is a shopping mall but looks so modern and beautiful. The buildings are not the only thing that are beautiful of the shopping district. There is live musicians every where playing different types of music, it is just beautiful, it kind of reminded me of the movie Enchanted.

            Frankfurt from what we learned has many different cultures that influence it and it happens to be a year of Brazil right now in the city. Which tells me how open to new things, and new art the city is, it quickly has become one of my favorite cities of Germany and would go back there in a heart beat.