A Trip to Germany: Part One

I visited Germany twice for an official purpose alongwith 2 of my office colleagues. Very first trip was in late April 2006 to Hanover. We arrived at Frankfurt and took a connecting flight to Hanover. We finished our official work within two days and decided to go back to explore Frankfurt. Later in the last week of May 2006 I again visited Germany. Now this time our destination was Cologne so arrived at Frankfurt Airport and took a train to Cologne. After finishing our work we went back to Frankfurt as we had to catch up with an important business meeting. Thus Frankfurt has become very close to my heart as I have pleasant memories associated with this city.

Frankfurt is the fifth biggest city of Germany. It has got a very contemporary touch due to its impressive skylines. The city is situated on the Main river and is the largest financial centre in continental Europe. It is also the wealthiest city in the European Union. It is one of only four European cities that have a significant number of high-rise skyscrapers.It’s also the Germany’s most international town; more than a quarter of its citizens are foreign.It has a rocking nightlife as well. The three pillars of Frankfurt’s economy are finance, transport, and trade fairs predominantly the Frankfurt Motor Show, the Frankfurt Book Fair, LinuxWorld Conference & Expo.

We took a boat ride of 45 minutes and witnessed the spellbinding beauty of a city at river side. It was quiet peaceful and thanks to the chilly weather that added thrill to the entire journey. I enjoyed a cup of coffee while having a boat ride.

Frankfurt has an excellent transportation infrastructure and a major international airport and European transportation hub, the Frankfurt International Airport. It ranks among the world’s top ten airports. It is the second busiest airport in Europe after London Heathrow. It has two passenger terminals connected with buses and people movers (fully-automated rail transit system). The airport has two passenger railway facilities. The Regional Train Station is located beneath Terminal 1. The AIRail Terminal long-distance train station is linked by a connector building to Terminal 1. From here, there are a few trains called ICE depart to the central stations of Cologne and Stuttgart. The InterCityExpress or ICE is a type of high-speed train, which is operated mostly in Germany and neighboring countries, for example to Zurich , Switzerland or Vienna, Austria. We also took ICE when we had to go to Cologne. It was very fast but very smooth ride. Since I was exhausted so took a nap while my Boss was having a look to my monthly report.

Shopping in Frankfurt was one hell of an experience though it was real expensive but managed to shop wisely. The downside of shopping was the early closing time of the street. The entire street used to get closed at 7 in the evening. The pedestrian street, Zeil is the city’s major shopping street and is lined with well-known department stores such as zeilgalerie, kaufhoff, Saturn, Kardstadt, Woolworth, C&A, H&M & many international designer labels. This pedestrian street is nicknamed “The Golden Mile” and is often very crowded.

The super-modern Zielgalerie which is 41 metres tall with 10 floors, one of which is underground and has many international designer labels.It is all made beautifully with steel & glass. On the top of the shopping centre is an open-air observation deck which offers views of the skyline of Frankfurt and the surrounding area. It was awesome experience we stayed there for 15 or 20 minutes and took loads of photographs. For some time I felt really scared coz of the height but then managed to overcome it. Those 20 minutes were amazing staying at the top and having the bird eye view of the entire Frankfurt. We had pizza from pizza hut which was located in the basement of the shopping center. Since we all were conscious about halal & haram so we decided to go for non meat. The only option was cheese pizza so I closed my eyes n ate it but it was really yummy. Though feeling guilty but since I was well awared of the fact that I had to walk all the Zeil street so eventually would burn off those calories.We also shop around the main train station. It has an array of different shops. I found my favorite BODYSHOP and SIX over there.

Having food in Europe was a lil problem coz of Halal haram but overall a very different experience. We used to eat a lot coz somewhere in our heads we knew that we had to take a long walk to our hotel. We used to find Indian restaurants or used to have sea food for lunch. I had lots of delicious prawns with tartar sauce from Nordsee (German fast food chain which means North Sea). Usually we used to have our dinner at main train station. We had really good shawarma & rice from Iranian & Turkish food shop. Me and my office colleagues are huge Starbucks White Mocha Frapacino freaks. Actually my boss is the one who introduced Starbucks to me. Also had Hagan Das while loitering around the train station.

I also enjoyed the rain in Frankfurt. Once we had a meeting with a German association at 11 am but we reached early n walked towards a small coffee shop n took coffee n hot fries with tartar sauce. Suddenly it started raining and I got excited while our boss was kinda infuriated coz we were getting late for the meeting.

As a foreign language, German is the third most taught worldwide. It is also the second most used language on the Internet after English.I also managed to learn few German words. leme jog my memory…….in German hallo means hello, Danke means thank you, Guten Morgen means Good morning, Guten Tag means Good Day, Guten Abend means Good evening, Gute Nacht means Good night, Auf Wiedersehen means Good bye, Bitte means Please, Sprechen Sie Englisc means, Do you speak English.

This was all about Frankfurt next time I’l write about Cologne & Hanover.