Smoking in... Frankfurt?

So you know I am all crazy about fitness and health. Well then you would also know that I hate smoking (though I do hold some smokers very close to my heart despite their nicotine habit). As you are aware most of the world is going non-smoking… even in Milan is had been banned everywhere (if you smoke indoors in Milan it is like you insulted Gucci, Pucci and Prada all in one sentence) and now even in NYC they are on the brink of banning smoking on the street.

Now… when we think of Germany, we always think of being outdoors, lush, green forests, perhaps an Apple strudel and always in the top 10 in the Olympics… Germany is a nation that loves the outdoors (and to prove this, out of a country of 80m people, their largest city is 3m – so they choose to live and respect the outdoors). So you can imagine my shock… and I mean I was practically foaming at the mouth, when I went clubbing last weekend and discovered that they still allow smoking in clubs. There is a smoking and non-smoking section.

Now I hear smokers around the world groan (too bad, hear me out… smoke on your cigarette)… but the smoking/non-smoking thing does not work. Why? Because people ultimately gravitate towards the smokers’ section, which is always bigger and more modern and plays R&B (the non-smokers room always resembles a club from the 80s and is filled by non-smokers because these people get their kicks from other substances and by default do not smoke). So the smoking/non-smoking law cancels itself out and by default you technically have a smokers club.

Apparently after some research (also called bitching to the poor Germans who would hear me out) I was told that only in Bavaria is there a 100% smoking ban and apparently Berlin is super-strict with smoking, which is surprising because I’d have guessed that a city like Berlin is so laissez-faire smoking a cigarette in kindergarten wouldn’t go amiss there but… ok… I am not a Berliner… I am now a Frankfurter and I plan to change this law… one club at a time…

Part Two: Bike Envy

So after I pimped my ride but pumping air into the wheels and buying a lock for it I began to ride my brand-spanking new second-hand bike across town. I did look rather cool. It has to be said. Now, where I am from, Cyprus, the most materialistic place on the planet, men often go out of their way for an expensive car. It is not uncommon to see someone of 25 years of age driving a BMW (thanks daddy) or 36 year old men who still live at home but drive Ferraris or men who would sell their mother for a Hummer (check out mother4hummer.com). This is all in a vain attempt to show other men who is better and more successful and to get women into bed. It’s the typical ‘I got something that you don’t have’ attitude. I on the other hand do not have this attitude. As long as my car is economical and goes I am happy… so no pimped rides for me. Until that is, I got my bike.

All of a sudden I was struck down with a jealous and frenzied streak. Why the H should he had a fluorescent green saddle whereas mine is black? Oooh, look at that man with the basket – where did I get it from? Gah! She has a German flag attached to her bike… I want one too! I was seized with an uncontrollable urge to bike-accessorize. Can you even begin to understand what that feels like? I was almost in hysterics and went straight to Sport Arena for some fluorescent gear for the bike… anything would do right now… I even wanted a buggy for the baby that is attached to the back of a bike for only €478.95 (bargain!) (though there are no babies in the history of my romantic life) … but I would have needed a baby to use that properly… and I’m just too busy to get one of those right now… after all I had to focus on accessorizing my bike… I can’t be seen riding around FFM with a sub-standard bike, right?

PS don’t tell anyone it is second-hand. We want those bankers to see I pimp my ride!

Part One: Buy a Bike in FFM

The previous weekend I bought a bike. I was actually looking for the Flomarkt in Sachsen Hausen but I turned up on the wrong weekend. The Flea Market is only every other week and I had missed it. So I was directed to another Flomarkt across town in Ostend (EastEnd)… ‘great’ I thought – a Flea Market with the EastEnders. Just by being given directions I felt the dodgy-ness of the whole situation. But somehow, after 45 minutes of walking in the wrong direction into the Financial district and then taking a tram in the freezing cold, while having a hangover (I had gone out the night before… but this is for another post) I found myself in Ostend.

Now have you seen EastEnders? The UK soap opera that makes you depressed (it truly is the most miserable thing on TV – I don’t know how people watch it and are not on Prozac)… well the Flomarkt was like this… only… well… a German version which was even scarier as I only have AS German and I must have skipped the chapter about bargaining in a Flea Market*.
There were people screaming; clothes pilled up on the floor (who would buy clothes that look cheaper than Primark? Or am I just too bourgeois?) and bikes.

Firstly I have an issue with bikes that are stolen – unless I am stealing it myself (LOL). I didn’t want my bike to have been someone’s stolen bike. But how do you put forward a comment like this to a dodgy car boot sales man who would seemed more than capable of stealing a pensioner’s false teeth in broad daylight in front of their dentist. He said he would sell it to me for €150. ‘Did I look like a millionaire?’ I wanted to say. Actually… compared to the rest of them, I did… so I bargained with him… and just then a German kid came to buy the bike, so I quickly named my final price… fine €100. Deal or no deal? DEAL! Ok… so I bought it for €110, just when the kid said he would pay more. So I paid, got on the bike and rode away fast, almost falling over as I was still hung over and had not ridden a bike in 3.8 years!

*And PS Flea Market was an appropriate word for the place, given the amount of bugs there… I hate to sound all bourgeois-y again but why can’t markets be like Borough Market, where, let’s face it… other than the odd lost hippy and dappy tourist, it is frequented by Champagne Socialists (I think I prefer EastEnders come to think of it) and people who think that ‘letting the yellow mellow’ is saving the world…

Frankfurt expats

I came across this in a website about expat community in FFM. Though a little outdated, from 2004, I thought it was insightful nevertheless

Expats in Frankfurt number around 7,300. This figure only includes foreigners who live in the city of Frankfurt and originate from countries where the official language is English, i.e. UK, USA, Canada, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. The total population of Frankfurt is about 650,000. This means that the expat population makes up just over 1% of the total.The number of Frankfurt residents who hold no German passport is 165,000. This is nearly 26% of the total population. The majority of these foreigners are, in decreasing order of size: Turkish, Italian, Croatian, Serbian, and Montenegrin.The following data on expats in Frankfurt is valid as of 31.Dec.2004:

American: 3,292
British: 2,694
Irish: 459
Canadian: 353
Australian: 294
South African: (estimate circa 150)
New Zealander: (estimate circa 80)
Cypriot: 1

Note that the above figures are only for the city of Frankfurt am Main itself, not the surrounding areas in Hessen or the Rhein-Main region. Many expatriate workers make a daily commute into Frankfurt from the neighbouring cities.

Why queue for an iPhone? I'd rather wait in line for fashion week tkts

What is it with all these nerds and queuing up for an iPhone. To get one people wait in line for days practically. And then what do they do when they get their phone? They certainly don’t call anyone because they are so tired from standing in the cold on the pavement they go to sleep. I can understand it is something special but seriously… that much? The same goes for the Wii. Harry Potter books I can excuse. It’s literature and its educational so why not? I can understand people queuing up in an airport at Christmas for a flight home… but that’s so you can get out of the airport and into your comfort zone. We all know that airport food has severe side-effects and the toilets in the airports aren’t particularly sanitary, especially if the flight before you was RyanAir from Birmingham to Ibiza (Gah – help!).
I can understand waiting in queues for Olympic tickets or perhaps Milan fashion week. Sports in important and we all need to make an effort to look good so why not be the first to see the latest trends. But 27 hours in line for an iPhone? Who are you going to call? Ghostbusters? You can do that from a pay-phone? Your Mum? Does she want to talk to you? Me… don’t bother… I’m in the queue for fashion week and can’t talk now!

Why I hate the suburbs excpet one...

So meeting a friend for coffee or lunch is a whole torturous scenario. I live in the centre. This way I am as close to civilization as possible (i.e. the shops, the bars etc) so I expect people to share this mind-set with me. They don’t. Many of my good friends, live in the suburbs. And we are not talking about the inner suburbs like Aglangia, we are talking about Strovolos, which might as well be outer Mongolia. So I take a little offence to the fact that people expect me to drive over there to visit them, especially if they finish work at 2pm and I finish work at 6pm, on a good day (and that’s not including yoga, running, running to Lidl for Coco Pops or running to get new pajamas from Intimissimi). And so I expect to switch. So, one time I could to you in the prairies and the next time you come to me in the centre of civilization. Except it doesn’t work this way. People who live in the suburbs, especially the outer suburbs, seem to have developed a dread of the city and its centre. It’s as if I am asking them to visit me on the higher edges of the Himalayas in winter for tea wearing their swimsuits. It’s Nicosia people, come on. ‘I visited you, at the edge of the world, so now it’s your turn to come to me.’ They seethed with anger. It’s as if I called them country bumpkins, but if you live closer to Larnaca than Nicosia while you are still in Nicosia… come on. Once I met a friend near Metro in Lakatamia. ‘And so where do you live?’ I asked. ‘Right there’ she replied pointing to her car. ‘Are you telling me I came all this way to the middle of nowhere and you live there?’ I wanted to say. But I didn’t. I was too worried about how I was going to get home.
I will make one expectation though. The only suburb I will visit, without throwing a tantrum is Makedonitissa, because it’s not too far from the city and out of all the areas, it’s the best one. Perhaps even better than the centre!

Me in Milano

My first time in Italy was on holiday at the end of the first year at university with my family. Rome, Florence Pisa, and Siena. An Italian trip that showed me all the highlights of the Italian peninsula condensed into a week and four cities. Three and a half years later I was back in Italy for my Erasmus year. I landed in Rome and caught another flight to Milan where after an agonizing hour I discovered my suitcases were lost. But no time to stop there. Onto Stazione Centrale in Milan where I caught the train to Verona, literally within seconds. About an hour and a half later, baking cabin, as it was still warm in northern Italy in September, I finally arrived at the city of Romeo and Juliet where I began my fourth and final part of my journey, and caught a train to Trento. The train made its way from the top of the Po Valley, up up up into the Dolomites where, after seeing mountains jut out of the ground, flanked by tiny towns and budding villages I finally arrived in Trento.

That city was to be my home for the next four months or so. I got out of the station and as if by radar and sans map I found myself in the lobby of my hostel. Finding my friends who were on my placement year, we smoked and had a bottle of wine (that cost a Euro and tasted like cat pee) that we bought from the local supermarket. In fact it was so local, it practically catered to the immediately family of the proprietors.

Those four months in Trento taught me Italian grammar, geography and gastronomy, that my favourite coffee was Latte Macchiato (only €0.80 from the café opposite the Duomo and €1.20-€1.80 in Milan), that Americans were smart and more importantly fun, how to drink wine as if it were juice, who my friends were and who weren’t, that you can buy a slice of pizza per portare via, that Italian Churches looked like museums from the inside (and don’t they say beauty comes from within), that jumping into a fountain in the piazza in your underwear with your friends is illegal apparently, as is stealing dustbins from the street and a side-order or fried from a restaurant in Bologna, that ‘ti voglio bene’ means I love you, that the authorities need 16 days just to process a piece of paper, that getting your fiscal code may seem less mundane than originally thought, that travel is paramount for passion and knowledge, that you can catch a train to Venice for the day (€25 return and 2 hours each way) or a Taxi for five from Ljubljana to Venice for about €40, that Innsbruck was only 2 hours away and cold, that Lugano is the best city in Europe and even better with good company, that the Duomo in Bologna was stopped being built by the Vatican in case it was bigger than the Vatican and that Milan is a formidable city.

After I left I did not expect to return to Italy any time soon. I loved the country and knew it well (well… north Italy anyway) but there were so many other places to see and Spain was calling at the time… so I wrapped up Italy and got on with my life, thinking of Italy only occasionally until five years later…Italy was calling me to go back again…