I thought it was time to make it “official”: As many of you already know, I will be moving to Munich before the end of the month, to begin a new job in Munich on April 1st. I’ll leave Frankfurt behind and move further south. Go ahead, make the jokes about a Hamburgian in Bavaria. I’ve heard them all by now!

It also means that my nearly six years working for Lufthansa Systems are ending. My new job will be with Ironport, and I’m looking forward to it very much. I didn’t decide to move to Munich because I dislike Frankfurt (Frankfurt, despite rumors to the contrary, isn’t really all that bad) nor Lufthansa, nor “for the money”, but simply because Ironport offered me an interesting job, and I feel that it’s a cool company full of nice people. (I realize this may sound like a bit of boot licking, but whatever, those are the reasons, and I don’t care what you think.)

I’ll send around an email with my new contact information in early April; but you can always reach me at my known email address, or via jabber, icq, and so on.

At Frankfurt international airport subway station, 5:55am:

“Work is good. Having work means more money. And more money makes for a better life. Financially speaking, I mean.”

I was at the airport’s regional train station the day before yesterday, waiting for the subway home. When it entered the station, I heard a short discussion behind me. A somewhat older man, slightly Indian-looking, asked a woman for directions. She pointed to the ticket vending machine, and turned to enter the subway.

The man looked still lost.

“Where do you want to go,” I asked him.

He showed me a piece of paper he was holding. “To this hotel,” he said.

I looked at the paper and it listed an address in Frankfurt.

“I don’t know this hotel-” I began. Then I noted something.

“Wait a second,” I said. “This hotel is in Frankfurt on Oder. That’s in East Germany. You are in Frankfurt on Main. It’s the wrong Frankfurt.”

“But I have to get to this hotel, is it far?”

“Well, it’s in East Germany, near the Polish border. Very far I’d say – at least seven or eight hours with the train.”

“But I must go to this hotel, because I already paid for six nights.”

I didn’t really want to argue with him. After all, what do I know about other people’s plans? By now my subway had left, too.

“Well, this station is just for the regional trains, the subways. There is a long distance train station too; just follow those signs.” I pointed them out to him. “But follow me.”

I led him up the stairs, and brought him to the ticket office of the German train company.

“You can inquire about the train schedules here, and also buy tickets,” I told him. “They’ll be able to show you where to go and so on.”

“Very good, thank you,” the man said.

“No problem, Sir, you’re welcome.”

I went back down the stairs, just in time to find out that the next subway would have ten minutes delay.

Two Frankfurts

Just remember, people: When and if you go to Germany, and you want to go to Frankfurt, make sure you get the right one.

• Frankfurt/Main (Main is the name of the river, not the English word “main”) is in western/central Germany
• Frankfurt/Oder (Oder is a river, too) is in eastern Germany, on the Polish border.

With apologies to Dickens for abusive use of his book title. :-)

I just realized I never posted the milestone “Five Years of Frankfurt” after doing so (almost) every year I’ve lived here (1, 1.5, 3 and 4). And that, now, I have actually lived here for six years.

Six. Years.

That’s a long time.

I originally moved to Frankfurt to work at a small consulting company, and ended up working for a large IT company instead. When I first told people I’d move down south they all told me… “Frankfurt? Are you insane? That’s a horrible city!” Of course, life doesn’t really follow such preconceptions, and I actually found out that Frankfurt isn’t all that bad. Sure, it’s expensive and the traffic is insane. The streets are quite dirty… and the public transportation does really suck. But in some way, Frankfurt has grown on me. It’ll never really be “home”, but hey, home is where the heart is.

There are some good things to be said about Frankfurt, actually. For one thing it’s really small – you can cross town very quickly, and nowhere is really far away. The airport is 12 minutes from the central station by subway (if there are no delays…) It’s also got a pretty cool skyline. Just walk along the river at night, it’s quite a sight. No comparison to, say, Tokyo, but it’s really not bad for a European city.

It’s a pretty convenient city. I live in Sachsenhausen. Easy access to downtown, and pretty much everything I need within walking distance (supermarkets, subway, tram, dry cleaning; I can even walk to the central station and the south station).

I also enjoy the high percentage of foreigners. If I recall correctly, it’s about 16% for entire Frankfurt; some suburbs are higher. One of my best friends here is Turkish, and you will see a lot of African and Asian people. You’ll hear at least three or four languages spoken when you go to the central shopping district during a busy time. I love that.

Would I recommend moving to Frankfurt? It kinda depends on your personality, of course. I doubt I’d want to live in the middle of it with kids. But hey, if you’re young, single, and get a job here… don’t be scared of the town.

I may have some tiny amount of fame, but it turns out I am also able to change the world.

Last winter, I noticed how colleagues working in the Lufthansa Aviation Center would run across the – very busy – street, trying to catch a bus. I thought it would be only a matter of time before one of them would be hit by a car in the dark. So I mailed a suggestion – first to my superiors, then to the cities of Frankfurt and Kelsterbach – suggesting that a fence should be erected on the middle strip on the road should.

At the time, I got only negative replies. However, after my vacation, I noticed that they had actually set that fence up while I wasn’t around. No plaque or dedication, but I am a little proud that they actually did it. I may have saved someone’s life. :-)

I guess after that tornado, no strange weather should surprise me anymore. Yesterday morning, all seemed well, and I went to the Chinese consulate to apply for my visa. On the way back, went shopping, and after I got home the heavy rain set in. And I do mean heavy rain. When I looked out I couldn’t believe my eyes.

It was a hailstorm.

Yes, you read that right: Little pieces of ice were falling down, hitting my balcony, and bouncing back up 20-30cm into the air. Lasted about ten minutes. And then the thunderstorm set in.

And in the evening we had more heavy rains. Don’t know how much water fell on Frankfurt, but it must have been a lot. Temperatures, meanwhile, hover around 13°C. I am not complaining about this, I vastly prefer such a colder weather to temperatures in the 30s, but I must observe that it seems highly unusual considering it is now July.

A small tornado has damaged houses in Oberrad, a suburb of Frankfurt (Article is in German). Oberrad is about 15 minutes by tram from where I live. The event lasted all of ten seconds, but damaged about 30 roofs and knocked down 15 trees. Overall I have to say the weather is really freaky this year – brooding heat is followed by bad thunderstorms, and this week we’re supposed to only get 15°C – not that I am complaining, I do not enjoy to sweat, but it’s definitely unusual.

After it was very hot for many weeks, and especially unpleasant last week, the weather completely changed: The thunderstorms they’d been announcing for weeks finally arrived in force. Very loud. Very impressive. And with a huge amount of rain. Today it is cloudy and dark and stormy and still very rainy. I love it. Because not only it’s fun weather, it also means I do not have to sit in a puddle of my own sweat at work.

If it was up to me, I’d keep this weather all summer until we’ll eventually hit the autumn storms.

As I wrote on Friday, snow arrived in Frankfurt en masse that day. I cursed my bad luck, that I didn’t have a camera with me. In the morning it was snowing quite a lot, but this only increased. We easily had 15-20 centimeters by the late afternoon. Needless to say, few people were able to cope with the weather. Lufthansa alone had to cancel 150 flights. And it took me about two hours to go home.

I left my office at about 16:25. The bus was supposed to arrive at 16:29, but never came. Someone said there had been an accident with it earlier. Several other guys stood there and waited with me, but none of us was really willing to walk through the snow. Finally, at about 16:45, we decided that we might as well go ahead and walk to the next bus stop.

It was not pleasant. Within a few meters the wet snow entered my shoes and my feet were cold and wet. The bridge near our office was quite a sight. The icy, partially frozen snow was so slippery that the trucks and lorries were unable to drive unto the bridge – it was too steep. This also told us what had happened to the bus line. One truck was standing on the onramp of the bridge, and smaller cars tried to pass left of it – until one of them slid against the safety fence. There was no damage, but the car was unable to resume driving.

We continued our walk, until we arrived at the bus stop of the Flight Training Center. A bus just arrived; the rest of the way to Terminal 1 was just as slow as if we had walked, but at least it was warm.

The subways were also late. I finally arrived at home at about 6:40 or so. Freezing like crazy. The snow is still around, some of it anyway. I wonder if there will be more or if the winter is now finally over.

After a long, annoying flight onboard KL0810 I finally arrived in Amsterdam. Local time: 5:30am. Thanks to my seat, I got out pretty quickly. At the gate, someone else was just asking the only KLM employee in sight where he’d get the boarding card for the connecting flight.

“At the transfer desk,” she answered. “Go this way and just follow the signs.”

Nice, that was my question too. I walked into the indicated direction. Peter, the German courier guy, wanted to smoke, but I was in no mood to torture my lungs with passive smoking, so I bade him farewell, and followed the signs. I located the first transfer desk pretty quickly. Unfortunately, it was deserted. No matter. Surely, I thought, they’d man the more central transfer desks first.

Half an hour of walking through a mostly dark and deserted airport later, I had found at least five of the nine transfer desks. None of them occupied by a single soul. I decided that instead of sitting around and waiting, I’d simply go to the arrival hall, grab a coke at McD’s, and then check in at the normal check in.

Easier said, than done. First, I had to leave the international transfer area. I did expect a passport control, and that was short and painless. I didn’t expect a security check immediately afterwards. What is the point of xraying passengers who just got out of a plane and want to actually leave? Beats me, but whatever, if that is what floats the Dutchemn’s boats…

After that little surprise I conitnued on, further down and in a bit of a curve, to the baggage claim area. My eyes focussed ahead, I walked through the dark halls. The baggage lanes were all quiet and empty. Unfortunately, so was the toll gates. “No exit” and “closed”. All of them. And again not a soul in sight. A janitor told me how to get out, and indeed, about a half dozen baggage lanes further there was an open door. Still no soul in sight. Had I wanted to smuggle precious diamonds or the plans for the archvillain’s lair, I’d have had no problems at all.

I proceeded first to the departure area. Trusting the screens to give me the right desks, I first lined up at the baggage drop-off for quick-checkins. A big, flat bag – kinda like a wide painting, wrapped – leaned against the first KLM chick’s desk. Of course, knowing how airports deal with lost luggage, I alerted her to it.

“Thank you, I didn’t see that,” she said.

“I know,” I replied. “That’s why I told you.”

“Of course I don’t know whose luggage this is. I am sorry, excuse me please, I’ll have to call security.”

The next KLM woman told me I was in the wrong line. So I walked over to the other line of counters, where the two KLM women on duty promptly took about 15 minutes for 3 people in front of me. Still, at last, I had my boarding pass. I grabbed a quick coke at Burger King and decided to wait at my gate instead when I began to freeze very seriously. (The arrival hall of Schiphol airport isn’t heated. And I was the only guy in a shirt.)

I found my gate pretty easily – no big walk. The longest delay was waiting in line for the security check. Morning rush I guess. The gate had one flight before ours, KLM Cityhopper to Copenhagen. The checkin was completed, one bus left for the aircraft, one was waiting. Schipol has very clear announcements – not like the very nice sugarcoated messages you’ll hear in Frankfurt.

“This is the last call for Mr. So-and-so travelling to Copenhagen. Please proceed immediately to gate B24. You are delaying the flight. We will proceed to offload your luggage.”

Only Mr. So-and-So arrived about 2 minutes after the second bus had left. He whined and begged. “I have an appointment, I cannot be late!” he cried desperately. The KLM staff told him that should then be more punctual. “We can not delay the aircraft,” they said. Mr. So-and-So thanked them by kicking a garbage bin on his way out. Meanwhile, someone in the men’s bathroom commenced to puke very audibly.

Our plane turned out to be delayed again – by 30 minutes. We finally began boarding – and had to enter a bus as well. This is where I began to seriously regret having my jacket in my checked in luggage. Having come from a place 35 °C warmer, I was shivering about 3cm in every direction. The busses doors were kept open for an unreasonably long time, it seemed to me. And thanks to my non-aggressive nature, I was almost the last to actually baord the plane. I must’ve looked really goofy, the only guy in a shirt among people wrapped in warm coats.

At least it was a long-sleeved shirt.

I was lucky with my seat – 14C, at the emergency exit. Despite the delay in departure, we miraculously arrived in Frankfurt on time. And on the approach to Frankfurt International, I saw what I least wanted to see: The area was covered in a thin layer of snow.