by Real Traveler Trumble+Hannah
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Bloody Germans

From Our worldy experience in Frankfurt, Germany on Mar 03 '06

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The schloss
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Arrived after another long, cramped flight with our smiley friends at Lufthansa. Would like to just say a quick hello to the lovely gentleman who fell asleep on my shoulder, and only woke to cough some tasty-sounding stuff out of his throat every 3 minutes or so.

The train station is located directly underneath the airport so we headed down there. It was so nice to be greeted by the most unhelpful,grumpy and rude Germans after a pretty tedious nine hour flight, especially when they wouldn't tell us how to get to our hotel...

...celebrating the successes of the German armies...

The view from David and Helens window
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Finally made it there, and were greeted by another rude German at the hotel desk. Wandered up to our room and spent about half an hour trying to work out how to open the bloody door. Strangely funny at the time!

Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt on the Main River) was very cold, after massive snowstorms. People pretty much just going about their business, very reserved. Had lots of pastries and stuff for breakfast. Amazed by the amount of adult shops on the main streets.

We met a friend of Hannah's boss, David, and his wife Helen, who are a lovely and very generous ex Aussie and Welshwoman, who picked us up from the hotel and took us down an autobahn to their house in Idstein, about half an hour away from the city. Very very cool house, in an old school that was built in the 1600's. Lots of character and crooked steps. Had a grand tour of Idstein, saw heaps of old buildings (one built in 1449 and in great shape still) and a castle. David had to go off to work, so Helen, Hannah and I went down to a town with a very long name. Went up a snow covered mountain overlooking the river, with a big old monument celebrating the successes of the German armies(obviously pre 1900's!!)

Detailed housing
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So jetlagged that on the way back to Idstein we both fell asleep, and still feel terrible! Had an awesome dinner of venison with blueberry sauce, and then fresh pineapple with icecream. Very tasty!

The next day we went down into the historic town of Heidelberg, and took a self guided tour with the help of our little but expensive guidebook. Was quite pictureseque, but very sleepy. Lots of history and not much charm (maybe due to the fact it was freezing cold and we were so tired). Went up to the massive schloss (castle) which was in good shape, and it was a shame that not very much of the castle was open to the public. Went into the Pharmacutical Museum, but it didn't really interest either of us. We saw a massive, massive wine keg, that holds 221,726 litres. We only managed to polish off about a third of that, but still a good effort we reckon!

The war monument
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Went back to our hotel and the next morning we were off to Heathrow...

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Harris on Mar. 9, 2006 @ 09:27PM said

My Granddad was German! You just can't judge 'em all by a couple of negative experiences you know. Love Granddad

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GermanGuy on Mar. 9, 2006 @ 09:27PM said

I am shocked at all these negative comments. I am a German, and I lived the last five years in the United Kingdom. Contrary to prevailing stereotypes, the British are rude and ignorant. They think they are polite, but being constantly ignored and ignoring the people around you isn't polite. Queuing is a great thing, it doesn't exist in Germany, but at least German people don't pretend to be something they aren't. German people don't walk around with a fake posh accent. German people don't try to trick fellow citizen and sell them rubbish all the time. To give an example, in Germany, a plumber will be on time, do his or her work, and charge an appropriate price. In England, a plumber will pretend to have no availability for the next two weeks, arrive six hours too late on the agreed date, not apologise, but still charge triple the price. Although I can understand that Germans are perceived as being rude, nobody on this ridulous form actually tries to understand the cultural differences before making these superficial, negative comments. German people are like cats. You have to earn their respect, but once you did, you have reliable friends for life who would risk their lives for you. If you prefer superficial "see you around" sort of wannabe-friends, search somewhere else. But don't just make judgements if you have no idea what's going on. Always playing the WWII card won't improve relationsships between countries. Germany, like no other country on the planet, is self-critical with regard to its history. In fact, we still feel guilty 65 years later, and rightly so. So don't call us Nazis because we actually try to learn from history.

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Trumble+Hannah on Mar. 9, 2006 @ 09:27PM said

I think you're right, the British can be rude and ignorant. I also think that the majority of German people that we came into contact on our trip in Germany were rude, uninterested and unhelpful, especially those in positions where one would expect them to be otherwise (for example, the bloke in the Toursit Office in the train station telling us that he couldn't show us our hotel on the map). Germany does seem to be very self-critical, in terms of WWII etc, and that is very admirable. It doesn't, however, mean that the German citizens that we came into contact with were not rude!

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