Bum Fights and Crack Pipes

After a gruelling 13-hour flight, during which I managed to steal a few hours of sleep (I think), it was strange to arrive at 7am. Flying for 13 hours in complete darkness, leaving at midnight and arriving just as the sun was coming up, was an interesting feeling. This is going to be a real test of my resistance to jet lag. To make things worse, I had a 15-hour stopover before another late arrival in Rome, followed by a trip to Florence. Thankfully, I have five nights in Florence, giving me some time to slow down, relax, and recover after what has already been a hectic few days of travelling.

When I got off the flight, my first impressions of Frankfurt were interesting, to say the least. Despite most people speaking English, the signage for the train station and surrounding areas was confusing. To mitigate this, I bought a random ticket for a random train and hoped for the best. I was relying heavily on my ability to play the dumb tourist card if anyone pulled me up on it.
Thankfully, it wasn’t necessary, and I eventually made it into Frankfurt.

This is where things got very interesting.

During the five-minute walk from the station, I witnessed two homeless people fighting, thousands of discarded cigarette butts scattered across the pavement, and an old man smoking a suspicious-looking pipe. I was genuinely considering turning around and getting straight back on a train to the airport. Instead, I figured I would head south, cross the river, and get away from the immediate chaos of the city centre.
When I did, things improved massively.

I was shocked by the number of people walking and riding bikes around the city—at 10am on a Monday, of all times. I genuinely started questioning what any of these people actually did for work. Regardless, it was a huge improvement from my initial impression. Every corner seemed to preserve the old-style architecture and road layouts that made Frankfurt such a beautiful place to explore on foot. In some areas, it felt very quintessentially German. I ended up doing little more than walking around for hours, taking in as much as I could and stumbling across all sorts of cool places along the way. Eventually, though, I had walked so much that the prospect of a 2pm free walking tour was simply too much for my feet to handle. I decided to call it a day and headed back towards the train station early.

On the bright side, I also learnt - through a very funny conversation with a clerk - that the alcohol you buy from the stalls at the airport can apparently be consumed anywhere within the terminal.
This was a revelation.

It meant I could buy 500mL cans of beer from the shops and take them somewhere comfortable near my gate, rather than paying restaurant prices for a beer. A valuable lesson, albeit one I really wish I had learned yesterday. Better late than never.

The rest of my afternoon essentially consisted of public intoxication, in the hope that it would improve my chances of getting some sleep during my short two-hour flight to Rome. Not exactly the most productive way to spend an afternoon in Germany, but at this point, sleep was the priority.Read more