Old Henninger Beer Tower, Frankfurt, Germany
We got in line to check our bags for Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). I found out later, airline to Mecca and back. Catering to those on the Hajj, the lifetime pilgrimage to the center of Muslim religion. We were next in line when there was a commotion off to the left. A fellow was arguing with the Moroccan Airlines check-in, that he had to get on the plane that was leaving. Wanted to get in line ahead of others.
We saw his plight and we had a couple of hours to spare, so we signaled him that he could check in ahead of us. The fellow thanked us profusely and got his bags checked in time to make the flight he was running to get to.
When it came time for our flight at 4 pm, we were told that it was delayed and we were sent across the street to a hotel to wait until the new time of debarking, 11 pm. We were served dinner in the hotel and waited. When everyone arrived near flight time, we were told to go to a place where all of our luggage was and then take it to the other side of the terminal to where our plane was waiting.
Everyone grabbed their bags and walked and ran, even little old ladies and children. I got a good test of carrying both my bags from my right shoulder over my left knee and leading the swinging motion with strong right leg. It was a long way, seeming like 2 miles, but probably more like a half mile to the other end of the terminal. Everyone arrived bushed from rushing, only to find we had to wait again.
About 1 am, we boarded the plane. But about 15 minutes later, we were told to go back to the terminal and wait there. Something about a "new crew." I began to wonder. Around 3 am we got back on the plane again and this time, actually took off. We were all tired, mostly from waiting most of the night, but I didn't sleep. I was too excited. Soon, I was watching the sun come up over the Atlantic.
I enjoyed a couple of, clearly Asian meals and watched the movie about the time the US Army Calvary brought camels to the Southwest desert in the late 1800s, a true story that was quite interesting and often funny. One of the advantages of the 747 was rather spacious seating and first run movies on screens that were easy to view from most seats. Between these activities, I got up and walked around. It kept me from being stiff from sitting so long. Vitoon elected to stay seated and dozed.
After a long ride across the Atlantic, I looked down and saw us flying over Ireland as it was just getting dark again, and then over England to the English Channel. And then, when it was quite dark when we would be landing in Paris where we expected to stay four days before moving on to Germany. It was probably around 6 pm when we descended to the runway lights. We got quite low, almost putting the wheels down, when I heard the engines power up again and we didn't land.
Instead, we flew back to England and circled London until everyone was anxious and then, landed at Heathrow. I was glad. Gave us an opportunity to spend four days in London before going to Paris and continuing onward. We were about to negotiate British airlines replacement tickets to continue the connecting Paris flight based on our ticket. Vitoon was looking into that.
I had the phone number of one of our doctoral students, Raj Choudhary’s, sisters in London. I got on the payphone and was talking to her when we heard over the intercom that our plane was leaving for Germany. For some reason, they were bypassing a stop in Paris. Those going to Paris were all making arrangements to take British Airlines there.
When we asked about our luggage, we were told it was still on the plane. Not wanting to lose our luggage by staying, we decided to get back on. I had to cut my telephone conversation short with Raj's sister. Don't remember what we were talking about. She was probably just learning who I was.
We got back on the plane and within about an hour, we arrived at the Frankfurt Airport. I remember it being a very modern and efficient place. There was even a sex shop. Something I hadn't seen before. But when we picked up our luggage, we weren't quite sure how to get into town after 10 pm and find a place to sleep… Something we sorely needed.
After we picked up our bags we begin haggling with cabbies that were going to take us 15 miles or so into the city for about $15 American. But a guy who had been on the plane with us called out, "I'm an American. You don't have to take the cab. You can take the rail right to the train station downtown. Follow me…"
We did. We changed some dollars for Deutschmarks on a machine and got our tickets, I think around $2.50. On the way in, the young man explained that he was either married and separated or divorced to a German woman and going on to Homburg to be with her for the holidays. He told us there was a good hotel right across the street from the train station. We really felt lucky running into him so late at night. Who knows where the cabdrivers would have dropped us with little choice.
We checked into the inexpensive four-star hotel that appeared to be empty and were given a room that was rather stark with no window when compared to American hotel rooms. Storing our bags, we immediately returned to the street looking for something to eat. I don't recall if we found anything, but I do recall I got some heated wine that was really good and welcome.
When we got back to the hotel room, all we had was a down comforter. The room was not heated, so it took me about a half hour before I got warm enough to sleep. Vitoon did worse, probably because he was older and from a tropical country, and hardly got any sleep at all. He finally got up very late. So exploring the city was not in the cards for me until nightfall.
Because Frankfurt was the place where most of the US military congregated for R&R, there was a red light district within a few blocks of the train station. We searched for food but almost everywhere there were touristy Wienerschnitzel places serving sauerkraut and wieners similar to McDonald's but not very good eating with the weather as cold as it was. The wine was the only saving grace, tasting so good, especially when heated.
When we got to the red light district on Elbestraße, it was clearly lined with several story buildings with vertical neon lights in red signifying the buildings that were brothels. We entered one. Inside, there was a central staircase that circled the outside of the building all the way to the top. On the stairs, there were scantily clad girls moving up and down as well as men, from the street, like us, observing the merchandise. We stopped and talked briefly with one girl just leaning on the rail and looking down the stairway.
All along the wall on each floor were doors with locks where each girl had her cubbyhole for her clients. Neither of us had any desire to try out any of the girls in that cold weather, so we left the building and went to find a bar where they had a sex show.
Once inside the bar, we sat at a table and ordered drinks. There was some occasional entertainment, but it was so boring that I don't even recall what it was. A lot of time where nothing was going on and we just sat there nursing our drinks. Finally, I told Vitoon that I wanted to go back to the hotel. He told me that there was going to be live sex between a man and a woman and he wanted to stay and see it. It just wasn't happening… Yet. I persuaded him to leave but he wasn't very happy when we did.
After two nights freezing in our hotel room, it was Christmas Eve. We asked for and got a warmer room that was next to the elevator shaft where warm air came up from the lobby below and heated our room. We searched around and found that there were sex tours to nearby castles. Vitoon wanted to go on one of those, but they were expensive and I felt that like everything else in Germany, sex was rather repressive and overrated, by what I saw in the sex shops. We didn't have time and would probably not have any good female accompaniment.
Vitoon had a 500 cc BMW back home that needed an engine. So we sought out and found a BMW dealership. While there, I saw cars for something like 17,000 Deutschmarks. I wasn't familiar with what those cars were selling for in the United States, so didn't know if it was a good deal or not. Actually, I would've had to buy used like my brother did later, or drive the car the required amount so that it could be declared, used. Vitoon found that he would have to go to the BMW factory in Munich to buy an engine and have it shipped to Bangkok. We didn't have time or money to do that.
By nightfall, we found ourselves at the Frankfurt Cathedral. We entered with a lot of richly fur coat clad people crowding into the entry with organ music emerging from inside. The decorative stone arches on either side were crudely repaired with concrete, a shoring up that was done after bombing in World War II. For some reason, we didn't continue on in to the sanctuary for the Christmas Eve service. We were just curious. The place was packed anyway.
We crossed the river Main and through the 15th century neighborhood by tram. When it stopped there, everybody got off and dissipated into the buildings along the street. We got out close to the Henninger Beer Tower where I hoped we would be able to go to the top and view the whole city as well as get some free beer and pretzels. But when we got there, about 11 pm, the place was locked for Christmas. We should have known.
Suddenly, there was no one on the streets. We started to walk the long way back and there were no trams. Vitoon got so cold in his light coat that he just wanted to sit on a bench and not go on. I thought that it would be deadly for him, so I told him to sit there and I went over a couple of streets and was fortunate to find one of those Mercedes cabs that were everywhere earlier but this time of night were all headed home with their families.
I was so glad that he didn't get frostbite. When we got to the hotel he immediately went to sleep and didn't want to get up the whole next day. We had one more day left so I thought we would be warm if we took a train ride from the train station to Cologne and back.
We were on the south side of the river. Every few miles there was a castle looming up the high bank on the other side. There were also lots of vineyards with their characteristic rows of grapes, dormant in the wintertime. At each castle there was a chain that was pulled up across the Rhine to stop traffic and collect a toll. The way that the Lords of the Castle made a living off the river traffic up until all the little kingdoms were brought together in the late 1800s to form the country of Germany.
When we got to Bonn, the then capital of Germany that we could only see in the distance, there was snow. At the next stop, Cologne, the snow was gone. The first thing that we did was look for cologne. There weren't any brands of the French variety, but there was one, 611, supposedly the number of trials before they formulated that particular fragrance. I bought a number of sample bottles to share with others on my trip and my relative aunts back home.
And then, we entered the Cologne Cathedral. It was certainly an impressive building. But it was sad to see that Allied bombing had knocked out most of the stained-glass windows and they had been replaced by some lackluster manufactured ones with repeating designs… So unlike the original ones that were highly storied and brilliantly colored. I hope that by now all of them have been replaced by the real thing.
We got back on the train and returned to Frankfurt. It got dark but it was warm and we had good meals both ways. As we neared Frankfurt, three Gypsies entered our compartment. There was a young man and two women all dressed in black. The younger one was strikingly beautiful. I couldn't help staring at her. The older woman had a missing tooth and was rather ugly. I told Vitoon to hang onto his wallet tightly. I did the whole time until they left the compartment.
The next morning we got to the airport on time, but as had become PIA's modus operandi, we were delayed waiting for a part to come for repair before our flight could continue on to Cairo.
Copyright 2020 © Ronald W. Hull
11/3/20
