Frankfurt lays an Egg
So far, there is very little that has bothered me about
Frankfurt. Granted, I don’t have the lowdown like most of the locals, who have plenty to complain about. There is the
traffic situation that has completely collapsed. There is the lack of
affordable housing due to the systematic gentrification of many parts of the
city. There was a mayoral election that made Dr. Hannibal Lector look sane by
comparison.
But let’s face it: after many years in third world
countries, I am exactly where I want to be. It’s hard to knock the Zen out of
me that I spent so many years to acquire and improve.
Of course, every Zen has a breaking point, I maintain, and
that one nearly happened before my first flight out of Frankfurt since arriving
here. We’ll talk about the destination later – an excellent one, for all
intents and purposes – but for now, we need to focus on why the destination
nearly didn’t happen at all.
I honestly don’t think there’s an airport I know better than
Frankfurt Rhein/Main International. There isn’t an airport in the world I’ve
frequented more, there is none that is as familiar to me, even after all these
years, renovations, and add-ons. The airport is still distinctly German:
efficient, user-friendly, modern. That is, until Frankfurt became Kathmandu for
a day.
But let’s start from the beginning. We – Axl, Bash, and
Noah, my nephew – hop on a U-Bahn to the Hauptwache (10 minutes), from there we
catch an S-Bahn to the airport (waiting time 5 minutes, plus 20 minutes
travel). So far, so good. That’s less than 40 minutes it takes us from our
house door to get to Rhein/Main International Airport, and this despite the
fact that the airport is nowhere near the inner city area. Very efficient, the
way you would expect it from one of Europe’s most important cities.
Next, we follow the directions to Terminal 2. Wonderful,
there’s an escalator, finally we all get on a unirail that takes us to our check-in,
at Air Arabia. No problems there, either. Four passports, four boarding passes,
and we have ninety minutes to burn before we need to board. What we don’t count
on is that we will eventually need every one of those minutes.
We locate our gate, D9, so this is where our passports will
be stamped, and later our pants and carry-on be checked. Sounds like a plan.
Time for lunch. That would be at the nearby McDonald’s. McDonald’s works like a
breeze. In fact, we even use their new system to order ourselves via
touchscreen. Very, very important for picky kids who will refuse to eat the
cheeseburger with a pickle, or, in Axl’s case, his hamburger without anything
but the tomato and lettuce. Remember the ‘Have it your way’ slogan by BK?
That’s the McDonald’s touchscreen system to a T. It saves us time – not that we
don’t have any to burn. At least that’s what we think.
In the meantime, a queue forms around our area, and I decide
that it would be a good idea for us to join said queue. The queue goes way back, as in near the Swiss border,
and just for a moment, I’m beginning to think we might be cutting things close.
People start to push and shove, people start to cut in line…and there is nobody
to control or monitor the line.
Whoever invented queues didn’t have small children, I’m
sure. Any queue with small kids is absolutely murder: for the kids in terms of
boredom, and for the parents who need to watch them every step of the way. Some
airports have lines for families. Frankfurt isn’t one of them.
In fact, a great case can be made that Frankfurt doesn’t
believe in law and order, either, being that our line was pushing in unison
toward the control checkpoint, where some unremarkable looking employees warned
the crowd to stop pushing or risk missing our flights. Um, Frankfurt, ever
heard of crowd control? Where the airport provides the security forces to
provide an all-out stampede? Congratulations, Frankfurt, you have just joined
the list of airports who’ve become too big for their own good. We won’t mention
any others here (Charles de Gaulle, Heathrow, O’Hare, come on down).
We made our flight, but not before I needed to lead my boys in
a mad dash that spanned the length of the terminal. Danke, Frankfurt. Perhaps
we’ll try Munich next time?
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