Nearly arrested in Frankfurt

Frankfurt, Germany: It has been a very long and very interesting day so I will just make a quick post and then sleep until we head for the airport (across the street) for our flight back to Portland.

This morning, for the very first time ever (after nine nights) we had the "included in the price" breakfast at our hotel. Dang, if it wasn't nice too... tons of sliced cheeses and smoked/cured fish, rustic breads and mueslis too. Next time we will be sure to take advantage of this extra-added bonus. Otherwise, we were in a taxi and over to the Berlin airport (slash bus depot) for our flight to Frankfurt. Adam and Kara Goucher were on our flight, so that was fun... except the Gold Medal marathon winner was also on the flight and the entire Chinese team descended upon us prior to take-off. It was interesting, as the NIKE China staff person was there (to translate) and assured the Chinese team that DT was a "Big Manager" and it was okay to talk to us. My Chinese totally sucks, but we were able to congratulate the gold medal winner (she is absolutely miniature and so happy) and we had a fun time with the Chinese team prior to take-off.

We are overnighting in Frankfurt, which we have done before. It is a convenient hotel - across a sky-bridge to the airport - with easy access to Frankfurt via the train/subway in the basement of the hotel. The airport is undergoing a huge expansion. DT counted sixteen cranes... but I could not get them all in one photo:

Building underway in Frankfurt

I knew of a nice restaurant in the old section of Frankfurt, so we bought subway tickets and headed into town for dinner.

Old Church in Frankfurt


Fountain in Frankfurt


Our view at dinner from Oscar's at the Hotel Frankfurt


No Wiener Schnitzel tonight: I had the Frankfurt special: boiled beef
with horseradish over potatoes & carrots


My Driver had the ribeye with peppercorn sauce


Oscar's at the Hotel Frankfurt

We had a wonderful dinner at Oscar's. Our waiter, Mr. Edwards, was very entertaining and we lingered quite a bit enjoying the lovely evening and lovely wine.

Cake in a Frankfurt bakery window


DT in Frankfurt

Which brings us to how we were nearly arrested in Frankfurt.

Seriously, we are very honest people and would never cheat anyone out of a Euro on purpose. We bought a train ticket into the city from the airport, and after dinner bought the same ticket back to the airport. This is where we made our mistake. Apparently, the tickets are not the same. Blame it on us. Blame it on the ticket machine. Blame it on the dude at the hotel desk who told us which ticket to buy. Blame it on my terrible German language skills.

Before we were screwed for being stupid

Whatever.

We were 1.50 Euro short on the return ticket and a there was a ticket inspector on the train. He felt it his national duty to screw us as hard as Germanly possible. The fine for not paying the correct fare is 40 Euro... roughly $65. Each. Ouch.

We showed him our tickets into Frankfurt. We showed him our tickets out of Frankfurt. We screwed up. Were we given any credit for being stupid tourists? Were we given a consolation prize for being visitors to Germany? Nein. The fare inspector (who, by the way, was wearing jeans and a euro-trash T-shirt) was very excited to give us EACH a 40 euro fine! We told him we did not have 80 Euros cash (which, in honest retrospect, was not true, but we did not live in Southeast Asia all those years for nothing). I came up with twenty Euros from my purse. DT came up with 5 Euros from his pocket.

Suddenly, our 80 Euro fine was reduced to 25 Euros.

I found this quite exasperating and intriguing at the same time. Of course, I had my camera around my neck, and as the fare inspector began to print the ticket for us on his hand-held ticket thingy, I brought my camera into the scenario. The Ticket Dude told me if I took his photo he would call the police. This is where DT and I knew we were being screwed. Dang if we weren't totally angry and dang if there wasn't a dang thing we could do about it.

Don't you just love foreign travel? Can't you just wait until we head to Korea for the 2011 games?

Until my next update, hopefully from our home in lovely Beaverton, Oregon - I remain, your fare-impaired correspondent.