FRANZISKA OUT AND ABOUT

First, my excuse for not having posted in almost one month. We were on vacation and had a pretty busy program. And I needed a break from blogging. Maintaining a blog is more work and requires more consistency and diligence in research than you might think. In mid-March, Franzi had another great day out-and-about on her home turf in Frankfurt. It was a full day en femme again with two outfits and hence two postings. The day started as so often with a visit to Kleinmarkthalle, Franzi’s favorite lunch location in the heart of Frankfurt. Unfortunately, my most common lunch place had no space left – not even a single stool in a corner. For that reason, I ended up at that small Italian mom-and-pop stall I had talked about before, where I enjoyed a glass of wine with some bread and cheese. While I was strolling through Kleinmarkthalle, I received an unsolicited compliment from a gentleman, who said “ If I may say, this is a great look.“ But let us start at the beginning. My outfit for the day...

It was early February and pretty cold. That is why I took out my long leather skirt, my burgundy quilted jacket with matching ankle boots, and matching gloves. I love that my wardrobe provides some variability by now to just play and combine. It was late morning that I left home and despite the temperature and because of the sun, I decided to walk to the center of Frankfurt. It is a mere 25 minutes along the river “Main” and I headed straight to “Kleinmarkthalle,” that temple for food lovers in the heart of the city. If you read through my blog, you will find that “Kleinmarkthalle” is Franzi’s the most frequented location in Frankfurt – and for good reasons. Guess what, “Dry January” ended at one point, on January 31, to be precise. This time, I decided to try a different place in “Kleinmarkthalle,” a sort-of Spanish tapas place. What you see in the picture – beside me and my wine 😏  - is a small pan with shrimp, fried in oil. Delicious! After lunch, I visited my favorite wine pla...

What else can you learn from looking back at your archives? You have aged! Ageing isn’t bad in and by itself, though. I am at peace with my age, fem or male, drag or drab. If there is one thing that crossdressing can do for you, it can make you look significantly younger. Franzi very recently had a conversation with a man at a hotel bar late in the evening and somehow the conversation lead to the question of age. When I told him that I am in my late 50s, his jaw dropped and he didn’t want to believe me. I was looking particularly cute and well made-up that evening, though, despite the fact that I had been out-and-about since 10 am. Portrait of the day. This is the same wig I still often wear today. However, it was before I started to regularly have it professionally groomed and styled. Obviously! Incidentally, I just picked it up at my hairdresser yesterday and it looks fantastic. And I was still a little chubby. But some cute legs, don’t you agree?

Time flies. The last day out-and-about was in August. Now it is October already. I am not a great fan of flea markets. To my liking, most of what is offered there is junk. But as you might have concluded already anyway, Franzi and her male alter ego have a clear leaning towards quality, style, and design. Hence, it was only by coincidence that I came along that part of the river along “Schaumainkai,” where a flea market happens to take place every Saturday (9:00 am to 2:00 pm), officially since 1975. Portrait of the day I am so sorry for this Hodgepodge outfit. It actually wasn’t as bad as it looks here, but my wife was aghast when I showed this picture to her. It was my intention to grab my brown leather jacket, which would have made the outfit a little more coherent, but somehow that didn’t happen. After the flea market, I visited my regular places: the Italian-inspired food stall downstairs at Kleinmarkthalle for lunch, the truly Italian wine bar upstairs at Kleinmarkthalle, and …...

Oh no, opera again, you might think, another opera visited by Franziska! Yes, but not just any opera. The “Bayreuth Festival” is  the  opera event of the year in Germany and it is  the  place for Wagner lovers from all over the world to visit. Floor-length dresses and tuxedos are the expected norm, even though this tradition seems to fade. This is where my wife and I went in August 2024, both dressed in new floor-length dresses and high heels. Around the hilltop opera house, there are several restaurants, bars, and food stalls. We had booked an arrangement at one of these restaurants, in which you then have an assigned table, fine buffet food, and a well-stocked bar all day long, before the performance, during the intermissions, and for a night-cap afterwards. On that day we visited the “Bayreuth Festival,“ Wagner’s last major opera called “Parsifal” was performed.  The opera lasted for six hours, including two one-hour intermissions. There happened to be a fair...

If you look up “sole” in any of the dictionaries that cover the English language, you will find that there many meanings and uses to his inconspicuous little word. But there is one that is most appealing to Franziska. Can you guess? This posting covers the rest of this first day out and about, in which Franziska was giving her new wig a performance test. Franzi was heading to dinner, which, in this case, required crossing the river Main into “Sachsenhausen” with the subway, to visit a French restaurant close to “Schweizer Platz” (Swiss Square). Swiss square is literally squaring the circle (or vice versa), as it is actually a small roundabout, and it constitutes the center of gravity for shopping and night life, south of the river. This is a very traditional French restaurant: catchy interior design, classy selection of food items, great wines, and occasional service. This, for example, is a French Onion Soup with a Sauvignon Blanc (if I remember correctly). And this is a very, very ta...

This was the first time I was wearing my new wig. That is the wig I bought online after the unpleasant experience at the wig store in downtown Frankfurt. I had also told you in earlier postings that I have my three human hair wigs washed, groomed, and styled at a local hairdresser after three to five days out and about. With this new wig, I first wanted to see and feel how it would “perform” without any styling. Here are some observations from the first three days with the new wig in its as-received form. Let’s start with an assumption. I assume that any cis girl, the same way as I do as a cis boy, has grown to understand how one’s hair behaves. It might change over years, but in principle you know when to wash it, which products to best use for its care, and how to style it. With my short gray hair, the latter point is very easy 😁.  You might even understand how its behavior varies seasonally or with climate. With a new wig – especially one you ordered online – you have no experi...

The first church of the day, “Paulskirche” (St. Paul's Church), right in historic downtown, is not used for church services anymore. Originally built between 1789 and 1833, it served as a protestant church until 1944, before being converted (no pun intended) into an assembly hall. One of the most significant current uses is for the award ceremony of the “Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels” (Peace price of the German book trade). Recipients of this price range from Max Tau in 1950 to Salman Rushdie in 2023.  Franziska, taking seat in the audience. Unfortunately, there was no event that day to attend. The speaker’s desk Paulskirche in Frankfurt also has high significance for Germany’s democratic development. It served as assembly hall for the first ever democratic convention on German ground, the Frankfurter Nationalversammlung, which took place in 1848/49. On display in the main hall of Paulskirche, you find the German national flag (above Franzi) and the flags of the 16 states...