Work trip to Frankfurt, Germany - 17th to 18th September 2007

Something of a flying visit to Germany for 24 hours or so, including a long day's work as well. This time, I had the pleasure of flying from London City airport for the first time in a while - and was reminded how nice airports can be when they work properly, and aren't completely full of idiots. The DLR journey from Bank took 20 minutes, the check in queue was non existent, and the security queue was barely any longer - I literally went from the DLR to the departure gate inside 5 minutes. Amazing, and despite the slightly unnerving and strong smell of jet fuel in the departure lounge, it was a very stress free journey over to Frankfurt.

On arrival, it was absolutely hammering down with rain, and not having any waterproof clothing meant that I was pretty much restricted to my hotel for the evening. They had a strange German tapas bar there, so I grabbed a beer, and sat watching the England vs Argentina women's World Cup match (in football, and we battered them 6-1 I'm glad to say). Whilst the game was going on, a very German take on tapas dishes arrived in front of me. Of course, lots of salami, ham and sausage, and very hot jalapenos (which the Spanish are too chicken to eat at the best of times) In fact, it was not very Spanish at all - more like small portions of German food. All very nice though, and both food and beer went down a treat.

My work the following day was in a fairly new part of Frankfurt, full of office buildings but also apartment blocks, which has only been there for the last 4 or 5 years. On the way there, I saw the Radisson Hotel, which looks like a massive biscuit on its side - a brilliant circular building that you really wonder how it stays upright. Whilst spending the day in an office block that could have been anywhere, I had another encounter with the peculiar German take on "international" food. For lunch, I went to a Mexican restaurant, and had a burrito - which had huge chunks of carrot in it. Not terribly authentic I suspect, but very German in that respect!

After more work, it was back to the airport, and I was reminded how extremely over-zealous the security at Frankfurt airport is. There was a security alert when I got there, because of an unattended bag (when will people EVER learn not to leave bags lying around in airports!), and then I had to walk through 2 x-ray machines between checking in and getting on the plane. That would normally be only slightly over the top - except that the metal detectors were turned up so high that my metal cufflinks set them off. Every single person was setting the machine off - couldn't they have just turned it down to the level that seems fine for EVERY other airport in the world?