The Frankfurt Experience

I apologize profusely for my complete and utter absence from the blogosphere for the past two or so months. The particularly volatile mix of finals, interning, family time, Christmas and New Year's made for, well, a lack of blogging.

So in the meantime, while I gather my thoughts and begin posting again, here is a quite entertaining read. Two years ago I studied abroad in Florence, Italy for four months. During my time abroad I had the opportunity to visit a handful of other countries-in particular, Germany. Frankfurt, Germany to be exact. I'm 75% German, which most likely explains my undying love for some good bratwurst and a beer. But even with all that Germany blood running through my veins, NOTHING and I mean NOTHING could have prepared me for what I was about to encounter during my weekend in Frankfurt.

Hooray, Germany! Hooray, Soccer!

The Frankfurt Experience

This past year I had the opportunity to Study Abroad in Florence, Italy. It was a fantastic experience and I would not have changed a thing. I was able to come back to the United States with tons of pictures and stories. But of all the stories that I collected, my Frankfurt Experience is by far the most entertaining.

In comparison to my fellow Study Abroaders I didn't get to travel nearly as much, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing either. I mean seriously, who wants to spend just two days in Paris? Not me. I want to be able to go to a city and have time to actually enjoy it and soak up the culture. But even through my limited travel experience, I still had the opportunity to visit Frankfurt, Germany (and Interlaken, Switzerland-but that wasn't nearly as entertaining a story). Now you may be asking yourself, "why in the world did you choose Frankfurt over a city like Berlin or Münich?" And the answer is simple, it was a cheap flight Halloween weekend. And as a broke college I appreciate such deals and will jump at the opportunity to take advantage of them.

So we had booked a flight. To a random city. With no idea what we were going to do there. Sounds like the makings of a great weekend. And I'm not gonna lie, we were both kind of nervous about this trip. For starters we had booked a Hostel that was, according to the website, "relatively" near the Red Light District, second off, when we booked our flight we were too stingy to buy travel insurance-so there was no backing out, and then right after we had booked our flight my fellow traveler, Mary, informed her Italian professor of our weekend plans, and her response was complete shock. She couldn't understand why we had chosen Frankfurt because in her own words, "there is nothing to do Frankfurt".

Needless to say we were a bit apprehensive. But nonetheless, we were going to Germany.

So Halloween weekend rolls around and it's time for us to commence our journey to Germany. Everything is going smoothly so far. Got to the airport on time, went through security easily, didn't have to worry about bags because, as I stated earlier we are broke college students, so we just brought a carry on bag. But then we got on the plane. And well, this wasn't necessarily something that went wrong but it is definitely worth mentioning. So whenever you are able to get a round trip flight from Italy to Germany for under 55 Euro, some amenities and comforts have been cut. First thing we noticed was the fact that we had to walk to the plane. And when we got on board it was a free for all for the seats. The other passengers were obviously more experienced with this because they hauled ass to the plane and snatched up all the premo spots, and to be quite honest I was in no mood to get into a fight over a seat with an Italian. I had already had to deal with my fair share of yelling Italians. So Mary and I finally find some seats and sit down and listen to the stewardesses give us the in flight instructions. It was the same old, same old, keep seated. Keep your hands and feet inside at all times. Aka be normal. But posted on the back of all the seats were directions on what to do incase the plane were to crash, and at this point I turned to Mary and told her that this was the first time I had ever been on a plane where I felt that I should actually pay attention to these instructions. Considering how cheap we got this flight, I wouldn't have been surprised if they were able to save costs by cutting back on, oh I don't know, landing gear. 

Classy cooking wear, obviously.

*SPOILER ALERT* We made it to Germany safely.  No crash landing either, which I considered an epic win.

Now I am going to take a moment to just warn all your future RyanAir travelers about where exactly you are going to be landing in relation to your intended destination. RyanAir may advertise that they fly to all this wonderful places that you've always wanted to visit and unless you read the fine print, you will have a similar experience to me and Mary. When we booked our flight we were under the impression that we were going to be landing in FRAKFURT. Well being the naïve Americans that we were, we didn't realize that we were being dropped off at Frankfurt HAHN, which, SURPRISE!,  was a two and a half hour and 25 Euro bus ride away from our Hostel. When we went inside to find some information about how to actually get to our Hostel, we ended up talking to this lady, who from across the room seemed knowledgeable and helpful. Well. She was knowledgeable, that's for sure. Since at the time we were unaware of how far away we were from our Hostel, we asked the lady if it was possible to walk from the airport. Her oh so eloquent response was as follows, "Um well if you had enough time you could walk to Paris." Bitch please, I don't have time for your attitude. I already feel out of place not knowing how to speak the language (probably should have brushed on some of my high school German before departure). So after our friendly discourse the lady gave us some information about how to get to the Hostel and we went outside to fight with some Italians and Germans for a spot on the bus.

Two and half uneventful hours later…

Ahh finally  in Frankfurt. THANK GOD. So now it was time to rush and find out Hostel because we had a timed check-in that we had to abide by. So we grab out backpacks and begin the hunt. According to the website this hostel was right by the Frankfurt Train Station. I swear finding this Hostel at 9pm was like trying to find Waldo while wearing a blindfold. We walked up down the streets, and had we been looking for prostitutes or a lap dance we would have been set. But sadly, we weren't. In fact we were looking for a place to sleep, eventually. We were exhausted. Finally after about thirty minutes of walking up and down the streets we came to the realization that we passed out Hostel about twenty nine minutes earlier. And true to the website, the Hostel was right across from the Train Station. So we rush inside, up the elevator (because it was forbidden to use the stairs-I'll get to that later), and in to the main room to check in. Later that night we met up with one of Mary's friends for a traditional Frankfurt dinner, then returned to the Hostel to finally get some sleep. And this was the moment that things started to get obnoxiously weird and awkward and, well, basically just pushed us so far out of our comfort zone that we weren't even remotely in the same area.

My bunk was on top, of course. The guy below me was apparently  stocking up for the impending apocalypse because he had boxes of random food all over his desk.

When we booked our Hostel, being a broke college student did not bode well in our favor. Since we were trying to be as cheap as humanly possible, we decided to do a 10 person mixed room, because we, once again naively, assumed that it was going to be evenly split five girls, five guys. Um yeah. Not so much. Upon our return to our room at around midnight we turned on our lights only to discover that we were the only two girls in our room and that our bunks were on opposite ends of the room from each other. At this point panic crept on to our faces as we turned and looked at each other. What the hell had we done? Mary quickly grabbed me and pulled me into the bathroom, turned on the light, looked at me and said, "I know we have only known each other for about two months, but I think we are close enough to change in the same room." And considering the circumstances, I willingly agreed. I wasn't going to force Mary, or myself, to wait out side the bathroom with a room of mysterious, potentially sketchy European/American/some other nationality men. After quickly changing into our pajamas for the night we quietly walked across the room to our respective, trying to be as quiet as possible since we had already woken up all our Hostel buddies when we turned on the lights. It was so nice being able to finally lay down in a quiet room, in a semi comfortable bed, and sleep…these feelings lasted about ten minutes at which point I was awoken to the feeling of a shaking bed. My roommate was doing something and I was too scared, tired, and creeped out to investigate further. So I just braced myself and forced myself to fall asleep.

The next morning Mary and I woke up to a completely empty room. Apparently our roommates were early risers-no complaints here. So we quickly got ready, grabbed our stuff and headed down the hall to devour what was described as a complimentary continental breakfast.

I'm just going to take a moment to explain something that depressed me every single morning I woke up in a European Hostel/Hotel. And that "something" is the pathetic breakfasts that they offer. I guess as an American and a Texan I've been spoiled my whole life with the awesomeness that is breakfast tacos, bacon, scrambled eggs, oatmeal, sausage, biscuits and gravy, and so on, you get the point. Breakfast time always made me homesick. While traveling around Italy I had come accustom to these so-called "breakfasts". I would typically have a roll with nutella or butter, maybe some ham, and some coffee. (TOLD YOU  IT WAS SUB PAR). But when we came to Germany I had this strange optimism that of all the places in Europe that could potentially offer a REAL delicious breakfast, Germany would be that country. I mean, my family is German and we have all these wonderful authentic German meals that are absolutely amazing, and the breakfasts are no exception (see German Pancakes. They taste like rainbows. True story. Make them, and you will see what I'm talking about.). When we walked in to the breakfast room, all my optimism immediately vanished, along with my appetite. I was so disappointed. It was essentially the exact same that thing that I had been eating all semester. Bread. Butter. Coffee. But this time they offered hard boiled eggs. Woo hoo. So after yet another lack luster breakfast Mary and I headed out to explore what Frankfurt had to offer.

Our Hostel. No joke.

Cool, Frankfurt. Believe it or not, America is known for more than just sex.

When we walked outside of the building and looked back at our Hostel, we almost couldn't believe where we were staying. Right next to our Hostel was a sex shop called "World of Sex". On the SECOND FLOOR OF OUR HOSTEL were advertisements for "Table Dancing" and "Virgin Bar". This explained why we weren't supposed to take the stairs up to our room.  (Although Mary and I did one night and we bum ped into what we can only describe as a pair of drug addicts who were doing some super sketch stuff behind this big tan door with something written in German on it.) As we continued down the streets of Frankfurt there were sex shops EVERYWHERE and they all seemed to be focused around the same theme: America. No joke. Apparently in Germany, the idea of America is closely related to the idea of sex. There were even shops that featured the shape of the Empire State Building in the shop name. One building in particular was called "American Showcenter". I can say without a doubt, that Frankfurt is by far the horniest city that I have ever visited.

The rest of the day was pretty normal. We walked around a bit, took a lot of pictures, ate some bratwurst, drank some beer, you know, the usual. Before we had set out on our adventure for the day, we had seen a flyer advertising a FREE (!!!) pasta dinner that night. Luckily I hadn't gotten sick of eating pasta yet, so we made sure to make it back on time to devour some German Italian food. When we arrived back at the hostel, to our (pleasant) surprise the food was actually pretty good. (But to be honest, we had obviously had better, I mean come on, we had been living in Italy for about two months.) Since we hadn't been having to great of an experience at the hostel, and since as far as we could tell, we were the only Americans staying there this weekend we tried to find a table off to the side so we didn't have to deal with any more creepiness. But through all the noise in the dining area we heard a familiar accent. AMERICANS WERE NEAR! We quickly started looking around to find where that beautifully familiar accent was coming from. It didn't take long to find it's origin, there were two American girls sitting behind us who had been studying abroad in Spain.

ZOMG BRATWURST!

We immediately started talking about our respective experiences, which then turned into a venting session about the absurdly high level of creepiness that a lot of European men seem to possess. The story that I contributed to this discussion had taken place about a month earlier. Where I lived in Florence was about two blocks from anybody else in our program. The closest person to me was Mary who lived two streets over, so at the beginning of the semester we made a pact that we would always walk with each other back to our respective apartments. Because, like any city at night, Florence can be a little creepy. Despite our best efforts there were always a couple nights when we weren't able to meet up to walk back. This was one of those nights. I had met up with some friends earlier in the night for dinner and was now on my way back home. My home-stay in Florence was located on a relatively safe street, and any other night that I had walked back, I had never had a problem. I was about 20 feet from my door when I started hearing a group of guys from across the street start yelling at me. I could tell that they were trying to get my attention, but I just ignored them and continued down the street. Their yelling got louder, and I still ignored it. I was about three feet from my door when I felt something hard him my back. I turned around just in time to see the rock fall and hit the ground, and when I looked back across the street the group of guys was just laughing and laughing. Those FINE gentlemen had thrown a rock at me to get my attention. I can tell you for a fact, the moment that happened, I IMMEDIATELY developed a greater sense of appreciation for the American guys that I am surrounded by all the time. Sure they may be a little weird every now and then, but at least the majority of them treat you with complete respect.

I couldn't believe that my story had actually happened. But when the other American girl that we met told hers, I was in complete shock. To get to the airport the girls had to take a train. Since being in Europe, I think it was safe to assume that we had all adjusted to being surrounded by creeps, gypsies and other odd ball characters on any form of transportation. But even though all these people were definitely a bit off, they always left us alone (except for the freaking gypsies, they ALWAYS asked for something and tried to pickpocket you. But that's why I wore a money belt and looked like a complete nerd the entire time.). Then the girl told us that this guy came on the train and sat down right next to them. Everything was fine and normal until he started rubbing her leg and making kissy faces at her. The girl repeatedly told him to stop, in Spanish, and threatened to call the police. But despite her best efforts the man continued to bother her. Another thing that we all agreed on, was that if this had happened in America, somebody else on the train would have come over to help get the guy away from her. But not in Spain, or Italy for that matter. It almost seems like it's every man for himself out there. So as the man continued to rub her leg, the entire train just sat facing forward not helping her at all. Finally she had enough of it, turned to the man, and slapped him across the face so hard that his glasses flew off in to the other seat. Needless to say, he left her alone after that. Finally.

So after about two more hours of mindless banter, we finished our dinner and then all headed off to our respective rooms. When Mary and I walked in to our room, we couldn't fathom what we were staring at. Two of our Ginger roommates were lounging in their beds (which were on opposite ends of the room), in their underwear (not boxers), talking in a language that we had never heard before. So once again we both went into the bathroom to change, and then immediately left the room and sat in the main room until around two in the morning (just to make sure that when we returned to our room, that our Ginger friends would be asleep and hopefully covered up). While we were sitting in the main room we decided to try and be semi responsible and start planning our research papers. This was going splendidly, until I started hearing somebody mumbling behind me. Trying to avoid any awkward conversations, I focused on my writing, then his voice became louder and Mary whispered, "um I think he is talking to you." So I turned around and sitting behind me was a 65 year old British man (quite possibly intoxicated) telling me how beautiful I was and asking what I was doing in Europe. Now luckily I had prepared myself on how to deal with  potentially sketchy European men, by watching Taken with Liam Neeson. So I gave him a bunch of fake information and told Mary that I left something in the room and we HAD to go get it…TOGETHER (aka we are leaving now).  It was so frustrating, I had been in Europe for a little over two months and the only guy that had hit on me, was this drunk Brit. Sigh.

After this night the trip ran fairly smoothly. We visited a couple small towns right outside of Frankfurt the next day, then headed back for Florence…