Mini-OE to Germany–Day 2b

The eagle has landed! We have arrived in German. After a pleasant second leg with an half empty plane, we managed to sleep a couple of hours, I eventually watched “The Green Mile” till the end and aborted landing thanks to air control Frankfurt, we hit the ground in Frankfurt.

Already watching the landscape from above it felt different. So crowded, one village after another, on town and bigger town. Rivers with many ships on them, big commercial areas. The rural landscape chequered with fields. At one stage Lilo cried out”Hay look, the made hay” which as answered by me with a “Bah! Farmers! No matter where they are they are always the same”. I think she was a bit disappointed that she hasn’t seen one cow yet.

After Singapore we experienced Frankfurt airport as chaotic, dirty, unorganised and just old and outdated. Sorry Frankfurt, I know, there were times when a visit to the airport was so exciting, to see the big wide world walking past one with every passenger. But once you have seen Singapore you will measure every airport on this baseline. And that means Frankfurt, you urgently need a facelift. And maybe some cleaner toilets. And signage which makes sense and doesn’t change from “Baggage claims A-Z” suddenly to “Gates A-Z” and everybody thinks they took the wrong turnoff.

But enough off third, I have a job to do. My research project “Are the Germans as grumpy as they look?” I hope I don ‘t tire you with this already. I promise I will make it as entertaining to my readers as a scientific research project can be. And if you think I am mumbling and talking bollocks than maybe you feel with me if I tell you I  didn’t have a cup of coffee yet on this beautiful German summer morning.

So, our first direct contact with this German tribe was of course – the humble customs officer. And he didn’t surprise, he delivered on the spot. “PASSPORT!” he barked in perfect English.Since Lilo and I both stepped together over the yellow line , which could have given us a “ONE PERSON ONLY"!” bark he just said “TOGETHER!”. I was tempted to stay to attention and say a “YES SIR! TOGETHER SIR!” but I was too tired. And suddenly Lilo replied in German and then the whole world came to still stand. Think Hollwyood, think director puts focus on three people in a huge crowd. Everything around them blurs out , camera focuses on this tiny group, background noise fades out,the world holds its breath.

So the conversation switched to German. Lilo informed the official that this is our first visit since 13 years. I was holding my breath. How would he react to this too personal, too close for comfort private information? He smiled. He fucking smiled at us. How ridiculous.Wasn’t he afraid his boss will see him like this? Wasn’t he afraid to get retribution for this? He obviously wasn’t He looked as if he was very comfortable with this situation. He started a conversation. Let me repeat this for you: He started a conversation!” After this brief but pleasant chit chat, he eventually stamped a visa into my virgin passport and wished us a nice journey. When I walked past the open door of his boot, I heard him saying to his colleague in German” Hey I just had a New Zealander from Wuppertal”. The last thing I heard from him was “PASSPORT!” which brought a smile to my face.

I apologise for keeping to come back to this airport in Singapore. But as I said, once you had a nice experience like this everything is measured on this from now on. The trip from Customs to baggage claim was just ridiculous. Singapore is all in a straight line. Frankfurt is just like a Greek Maze. Turnoffs, missing signs, guessing “Are we still on the right track”, staircases up and staircases down again. I was also confused by the fact that we are already on German ground.I am used to picking up my luggage and then go through customs. Eventually we found the carousel and our suitcases.

I usually try to avoid telling the world how stupid I was. I find this notion, this urge to tell people “Hey look how I failed, how I stuffed up” strange. But ahh well,we did.  We were a bit stupid. But let me follow the timeline here. So we picked up our luggage and wanted to get a trolley. I won’t mention who it was, Lilo or myself, it doesn’t really matter.But we found the trolleys needed a 2 EUR deposit to be released from the compartment they were in. A 2 EUR coin! Who on earth would arrive in a foreign country with a local currency coin in their pocket? Oh how we were angry, oh how we swore. Oh how we indulged in this “Of course, fucking Germans! How ridiculous. How can they! How dare they!” I remember one of us saying:” So typical, they save to pay the wages of some old retired chappie for collecting trolleys at the cost of tourists having to carry their luggage themselves because they don’t have 2 EUR!” And carry we did. And warm it was. And we swore more,and we ridiculed more. And we dragged our sad bums all across the Frankfurt maze called “Airport” in search of the Hertz rental car office. I think I swore at everything, including – in silent of course – at my lovely wife for the 10 kg of Whittacker’s chocolate bars in my suitcase.

Eventually we made it to the Hertz office. After a short wait which allowed us to catch our breath again. By the way, Lilo looked quite fresh. Carrying 40 kg bags of maize left her well prepared for dragging a 20kg suitcase around the world. Oh and I forgot to mention that at the first stairs the wheel of her suitcase broke off. That was the penalty of telling me in a smug voice “My suitcase has wheels!”

Anyway, the guy at the counter at the Hertz office looked as sweaty as us. But again, he was friendly! What happened to this place. The second friendly person. Just a couple of minutes and 100 km suitcase dragging parcour apart. Of course he tried to sell us the upgrade.Of course he tried to sell us more insurance. That’s his job,and he did it well. He painted a picture of us sitting under a bridge in Berlin because we won’t have the money for this exorbitant excess payment should we even get a microscopic scratch into this shiny chariot we will be handed over in a couple of minutes. But he didn’t stand a chance with this New Zealand farmer and her accountant. So we stuck to the car we booked and weren’t even tempted to upgrade to a BMW which would have been actually smaller but hey, it is a BMW. But again we were treated to a brief personal conversation which turned around the fact that we haven’t been in Germany for 13 years.Yes you guessed it, my wife needs to tell everybody the fact that we didn’t feel the draw to this most beautiful part of the entire universe for an entire 13 years. He was quite baffled that we never missed Germany. Even my smug question “Have you ever been to New Zealand” was answered with “Yes, and still, you never missed Germany?”

So we managed the maze so far and fought of the Minotaur of the den of car rental and killed the Cyclops of Insurance Upgrade. And now my lovely wife had this brilliant spark which gave her an idea. “Could you please add 2 EUR t our rental car bill and give me a 2 EUR coin for a trolley?” Again, the world froze. And he didn’t understand what this woman wanted from him. And I thought ‘Woman! You ask for the most scarce thing in this whole world of computerised processes – Flexibility!” Before he could even try to understand and try to think about a solution I said there is no need or something like it. Knowing too well that they won’t have any cash at these offices anyway. And he suddenly spoke the most ridiculous words I heard all day:” A trolley? But why haven’t you used your credit card in the little slot where you get the trolleys”. How can I describe our feelings? Shame? Sadness? Pure exhaustion? I don’t even know how we got out of there, got a trolley using our credit card but we were suddenly on our way to the parking spot pushing our 40kg suitcases comfortably on a trolley. We even found another 2 EUR coin in the slot when we returned the trolley and got our deposit back. Someone must have forgotten it there. Someone very confused.

The car is a black Opel something the other model. Sorry I am not into cars. It is black, it is shiny ,almost new (1800 k’s on the clock) and has a lot of red glowing lights. After checking meticulously for scratches and damages with my “I’ll show those Germans and their insurance upgrades” and a couple of minutes walking around the car with my Lenser P7 torchlight – Made in Germany telling my wife “See darling THATS why I brought the torchlight, I know all the tricks of those bastards. A car looking brand new in a dark parking garage so that you don’t see the scratches and they can rip you off later with this insurance excess payment”. Needless to say that it was on her to show a smug grin and needless to say I didn’t even find a peck of dust on this shiny car.

Oh I forgot to tell that it showed that we would have to pay an additional 9 EUR if I would be allowed to drive this shiny piece of German engineering. But I thanked for the honour and told the car rental clerk that I rather prefer to have a beer or two and that I quite look forward to the moment when my wife and I will have the usual discussion about who is driving I will pull out this rental car contract. I might even highlight the section about the designated driver in bright yellow.

After another maze, this time the exit from the underground garage, we were on our way. I will spare you the details about the designated driver using the windscreen wiper all the time instead of indicating. I will skip the problems finding a handbreak on a fully computerized car. I will also not mention having to go through a 200 pages manual to find out how to switch on the lights. We were on our way, we found the autobahn which was surprisingly straight without turnoffs and up over bridges and down underneath other crossing autobahns etc. At one stage I could swear we were flying down the tarmac with at least 180 kph although the dedicated driver insisted it was only 140 kph. And yes we still had cars flying past us at an estimated speed of 320 kph. Crazy! Did we really do this, too when we lived here and thought it was normal?

I still found my way around the streets of my old home area. We took the right off ramp, found the correct roads, even  managed the challenge of a detour around yet another roadwork. At some stage the roads looked very foreign to me because a lot has been changed. Bypasses had been build around villages and the main roads which which were the main arteries were now  narrow lanes, with islands planted with trees etc. Of course we both forgot to print out the Google maps direction sheet but I still remembered enough to find the address where Lilo’s brother and his family lives.

The two kids did a great job to help us. The fence was decorated with garlands and balloons and the door had a big welcome sign. Lilo decided again to do it “the kiwi way” refused to use the electric door bell which every house in German has and knocked at the door. Of course it didn’t work especially since we didn’t know that the door wasn’t the entrance to the house but rather to a courtyard. But no, I am coming from “a land down under where women plough and men plunder” and we do knock on doors! I pressed the bell and hey pronto the door was open by a buzzer.

I guess I don’t have to describe the warm welcome. Hugging, teary eyes on both sides, manly slaps on shoulders and eventually men hugs, too. Kiddies exited running between adults, fights over who’s allowed to carry uncle’s suitcase. Yes, I need to get used of the “uncle” thing.

It was 4 am when we adults all went to bed.