Yesterday we arrived in Frankfurt after a four-and-a-half hour, airless bullet-train ride through a Shire-like countryside, a great deal of which used to be the D.D.R. The Manhattan Hotel is on the Düsseldorferstr. 10, in, according to a cab driver, “the worst part of town.” It is a filthy street, directly across the street from the Hbf. We ate some Thai food featuring uncooked armadillo medallions. The hotel is book-ended between aromatic Arabic spice shops and groceries.
