Catch-up Post #1 - Quick Observations in Frankfurt, Germany

It has been months since I've written anything and I have had so much to write about, so I'm getting back into the swing of things now and writing what I remember.

On May 30th, I landed in Frankfurt and stayed over for a little more than 24 hours on my way to Ethiopia. It is the only time I've ever spent time in a European city and there were a few surprises - most of them pleasant. The first major thing that I noticed was just how orderly everything seemed to work in Frankfurt. Nothing seemed chaotic - not the airport, the traffic, or the security checkpoints at the airport. I was also struck by how relaxed the airport security process was once I landed in the country. After I collected my luggage, I stood staring at two doors for about five minutes while I waited on the customs agents to show up. There was a sign on one side that was for people who had something to declare and another sign for people that don't have anything to declare, but there were no customs agents available to receive a form, inspect luggages or anything. I found that to be very interesting and disconcerting. Although standing in lines at the airports in the U.S. and collecting my bags even if I'm only passing through the U.S. to go to another country takes extra time and can be a little annoying, I prefer that to not seeing a single person of authority around in an international airport.

Since food is quite important to me, I was quite pleased to find many outdoor/indoor cafes with great-tasting fresh breads and cheeses at reasonable prices. I was not happy to pay almost $10 for a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice though.

The parks were beautiful, clean, well-kept and really green. The weather was beautiful and I loved the beautiful trees.

It was impressive to see so many people riding bikes to and from work throughout the day and having bike lines throughout the city. I saw youthful men and women and grey-haired women and men riding bikes. I even saw a mom carrying her baby in a sling on a bike as she SMOKED A CIGARETTE IN THE BABY'S FACE. And this brings me to my last point about Frankfurt, Germany: How is it that a country with such lofty goals to use generate close to 30% of their energy from renewable sources in an effort to help Mother Earth not wage a visible, aggressive campaign against smoking?!? I couldn't believe how many people I saw smoking cigarettes there! I might be exaggerating, but it seemed like almost half the people on the street and in the cafes were smoking. That was the only disappointing thing about my short time in Germany - the place seemed so "with it" in some ways, but so far behind the times in one important way that affects environmental and public health.