Business Traveling: Germany
Frankfurt: grey skies and tall buildings

Someone took my suitcase by accident at the airport.  That is the second luggage mishap I've had in Germany, the country of extreme efficiency.  Six months before, I lost my bag altogether in Munich.  (Lesson learned: always tie a distinguishing cord or ribbon around your suitcase.) To be fair to Germany, the lesson from Munich is not to try and save money by taking a dozen connecting flights.  Happy endings in Frankfurt--the woman who took my suitcase quickly realized her mistake and we swapped our luggage.

In spite of my exciting luggage adventure, my friend David and I were completely jet lagged.  We walked around the city which was still slightly grey from earlier rainfall and began our consumption of pork products at a small, out of the way pub.  Delicious.  I do recommend trying appleweine which is like a nice unsweetened flat cider.  It's more refreshing than it sounds.

We got a little bit lost in our jet-lag haze, which was nice because we ran into a river walkway with a beautiful view of old churches and the financial district skyline.  Returning to our hotel heavy with food and alcohol, we wondered if this was the feeling that we were going to be stuck with for the rest of the trip.

Hannover: heavy machinery and metal, Bavarian feasts, and Grosch - the lop-eared rabbit.

We took a train into Hannover the next day to attend a metal fabricating trade show--our reason for German travel.  To commemorate our arrival, I managed to trip on the staircase at the train station leaving two large bruises as souvenirs on my knees.  Nice.

All of the hotels in town were booked so our client company rented rooms for us in people's homes within the city.  It's kind of like staying at a B&B but not.  True to our American selves, David and I felt like we were a constant imposition on the families we were staying with even though home stays are a common form of overnight stay for any Hannover trade show attendee.  I stayed with a nice German family who did not speak a word of English and David's household consisted of a gay couple whom, he discovered, had a subtle flair for decorating.  Checked in, ran out and began our work.

Evening.  We were taken to a traditional Bavarian restaurant.  Pretzels and beer.  Mauro, the company head, ordered for all of us.  A huge trough of pig fixed in every which kind of way landed in front of us--pork knuckle (one for each person), 4 types of sausages, ham, ribs, potatoes and sauerkraut.  I got through maybe 4 of the items in the trough and called it a day.  The others did better than me.  Again, did I really want to carry on feeling like a middle-aged German man throughout the trip?

"Home."  I got into the family's home as quietly as I could and detected a faint smell of animal--must be a dog or a cat--quickly shut my door so that the beast and I would not have an encounter.  The next morning I tried to get rid of any evidence of my presence in the bathroom which was not easy with the Euro-styled bathtubs with no shower curtains.  You have to be careful not to spray water everywhere.  Hung out in my room until meeting David then received a knock on the door--breakfast is served.  I came out to find a full spread on the living room table with juice, coffee, cold cuts, cheeses, butters and jam.   I overate to show my appreciation for their hospitality.  While eating, I heard a crunching sound and turned around to find a large cage with a huge lop-eared bunny sitting on a pile of hay.  "Das is Grosch." said my host.  "Grosch is das nammen?" I replied in my lame attempt in German.  "Ya."  So it was.

Bragged to David about my breakfast spread only to find out that he had experienced the same but his hosts provided him with yogurt and muesli in addition to what I had.  They even had a glass of wine waiting for him when he got home and spoke perfect English.  I was needless to say, jealous. As we continued our work, we were provided with invites from the company to attend a mini Oktoberfest at the conference grounds.  I felt I had enough of Bavaria and we began making up excuses to cut out early.  They proved to be unnecessary because we ended up staying at the party that was like no other: petite women carrying large steins of beer to large banquet tables, more underwhelming German food and sausages, a cover band that played songs in 4 or 5 different languages, and a large group of drunk international metal fabricators.  Need I say more?

David came home to find that his hosts had extended their hospitality by leaving a magazine filled with amateur porn at the foot of his bed.  I told him that this was their way of showing him that they knew he needed to be entertained.  We were both entertained. Well, I was vicariously through his tales.  It turns out that his hosts had a deep appreciation for the male form as evidenced by the faux frescoes of mail nudes in their bathroom along with the anatomically shaped spout of the pitcher in their kitchen.
 
Home at last
Back to Frankfurt. A pretty uneventful trip since it was later in the evening and we were both exhausted.  It was nice to get back to a hotel room where you could come and go as you please and not feel like you're imposing on anyone. More appleweine and I smoked the last of the cigarettes that I could handle and decided to drop the nasty habit before returning to the States. 

A quiet but content subway ride to the airport.  We were excited about the prospect of freely speaking English again.  Eleven hours later and we were home. 

-Van An Tranchi