Type 'boring Frankfurt' into google. You get 327,000 options...
My first trip to Re-Unified Tchermany was perhaps the most tedious experience of my life. I flew to Frankfurt three weeks after September 11th. My partner at the time (M) was into cars in a huge way and wanted to see the new Mercedes SL at the car fair. He also had a friend in Frankfurt who he had been chatting to online and wanted to meet. It seemed as good excuse as any to go away for the weekend. Frankfurt was trying to brand itself as ‘Manhattan am Main’ at the time and I was interested to see what all the fuss was about. I tried to show suitable interest in the cars. I’m not sure if I pulled it off.
We spent the evening wandering around from full restaurant to full restaurant trying to find somewhere to eat. I tried to show suitable patience. I know I didn’t pull that off as we ended up having a blazing row and eating room service back at the hotel. It turns out that all Tchermans go out to eat at exactly the same time and all go home at exactly the same time, so while the streets had an eerie empty silence, all of the restaurants were absolutely full and none of them were offering later sittings.
On the Sunday we met up with online pal of M. Turns out that while I had been told the story of online pals current romantic problems, I had not been told that M and pal had met through a dating website when they were both single and had almost met up before I came on the scene. The Tcherman spent all afternoon blatantly ignoring me, trying to lose me in crowds and saying oh so subtle things like “Ach... If only I had come over to London to see you last Tsummer”. M lapped it up. I think I tried to blame the sour look on my face on the sour taste of the ApfelWein. I don’t think I was believed.
The icing on the cake of the flight home was that all the papers were full of how a terror cell had been found in Frankfurt earlier in the week. In the flat were false Lufthansa security IDs and Lufthansa uniforms. I spent the flight home in fear that our plane was going to be hijacked and promising myself I would never fly again if I ever made it home.
Comments
Post a Comment