My second living room...

Despite being in a job that requires absolutely no travel whatsoever (unless it’s mind travelling), I seem to be on a plane at least twice a month. How this thought came to me was recently, as I sat on yet another Aer Lingus flight towards Dublin and I realised I’ve actually read the same article about what there is to do in Frankfurt so often and the authors accompanying profile, that I actually not only know every attraction listed, but also know that the author is Irish, married to an Irish man, ex-president of some ski club in Frankfurt and thinks it’s a great place to bring up a family – note to Aer Lingus, two months is a very long time to leave the same magazine in seatback pockets , I can even recite the movie listings for transatlantic flights for December and January. And that’s saying something when I haven’t flown transatlantic.

Moving along, October we flew to Dublin, December brought us to London for a weekend, then to Dublin again in December for Christmas, back in the New Year, only to be back in a plane again about two weeks later to head back to Dublin. Literally, I’ve spent lots of time in planes back and forth over the years, but lately it’s getting a bit much. I’m actually surprised at how slowly my Aer Lingus miles are racking up to be honest. So in all this flying, what are my top five frequent flying observations? I’ll start with the most obvious and work it from there.

How fast can you get out?

1. Piling onto the plane in Germany is not a good idea. It is critical.

Getting onto a plane, if you appreciate comfort, is a serious case of ‘when in Rome’ when you’re leaving Germany. Anna used to always make a beeline for the gate the second they announced that families and those with small children (aren’t they normally the same group?) could board, which I never understood. Lately though, I’ve come to realise that there’s sense in all of this – Germans religiously bring hand luggage at the upper limits of the allowance, usually in the form of a Samsonite wheel-along and if you don’t race onto the plane with them, there’s not a single flight from Germany you can take where you won’t have to keep your hand luggage under the seat in front of you. Since doing that annoys me terribly, the only option is to hop up out of your seat in the departures hall like a rocket at the first sign of movement.

2. Dublin Airport likes surprises.

We have a new terminal in Dublin, which by all accounts is very lovely. However a few things spring to mind that the first-time flyer will wonder about and the frequent flyers will laugh about. The most obvious is the hand-dryers. In the race to make it streamlined, fancy and nice, the hand dryers are recessed into the wall by the sink. In fact a lot of people never find them and end up wiping their hands on their jeans (including myself, to be honest). But once you do find them, you find a more critical flaw – the dryer has a sort of ‘slant’ so as it blows your hands dry, the water just tips out and runs down the tiles onto the floor. The other slightly comical fact about regularly arriving to Dublin Airport, is that on my previous three occasions, there were more ‘staff’ guarding the passport control line, making sure that errant Europeans didn’t try sneaking into the ‘Other passports’ line, than there actually were passport control staff.

From here to bus in 25 minutes. Comes with my personal guarantee...most of the time.

3. Frankfurt Airport is what foreigners expect.

Frankfurt Airport (terminal 2 in particular) is what airports around the world, including Dublin, strive and fail to achieve. It is absolutely, despite its size, one of the most efficient airports I’ve ever been in. To date, over easily 8 – 10 arrivals, passport control is sufficiently staffed (provided everyone’s ready), the luggage is always already waiting – in fact, sometimes the belt is already turned off – and without trying, you can’t not be out and waiting for a bus within 20 minutes of getting off the plane. Similar efforts it must be said have been made at Dublin Airport but are let down by the slowness of the baggage handling and the scandalous two (of the world’s slowest) lifts in the car park that cause delays regularly of 7 minutes or more.

4. Aer Lingus has improved so much; it makes me want to cry with joy.

I find it slightly ironic that it’s taken us to be deep in recession back home before the airline abandoned its flimsy half-effort at being a low cost like Ryanair and started giving people what we’d been looking for all along – decent service, friendly prices and at least some moderate benefits. Their latest departure away from being a true no-frills carrier is this weird pricing strategy where you can have bags, seat selection, etc all thrown in for an extra 20 quid to the fare price. Personally, I say make it 25 and let people get a free snack pack or something on the plane, but whatever it’s a great start. I mean they were never going to win the battle with Ryanair and at least now their service isn’t so abysmal. And passenger numbers seem to be on the up I hear, so it’s a win all round isn’t it?

Alcohol. Electronics. Perfume. I need new ideas - anyone?

5. Airport shops never cease to disappoint.

Here in Frankfurt city, you can buy a bottle of water for about 45 cent in a supermarket. It’s cheaper than Ireland generally, and that’s always the way it is. But for some reason, airports and the shops in them continue to hold passengers to absolute ransom for the most basic of items – a bottle of water in Frankfurt airport after passport control in departures will set you back nearly €2.50. I don’t know where people are getting this idea that this is acceptable business but if a bottle of water in Ireland costs maybe 80 cent and they charge €1.70 in an airport, this is acceptable, what with there being no other choice. But to charge nearly 6 times as much is ridiculous. I’d rather die of thirst. Similarly, I’m still waiting to see an airport shop in an airport that’s actually selling something really exciting – both my two most regular ‘visits’ have a way of forcing you to walk through a labyrinth of shops to get where you need to be, and yet both of them sell identical ranges of alcohol, electronics, shoddy souvenirs and perfume. I don’t know what it is yet, but there must be more things to sell at an airport that I can’t buy cheaper online than what we have at the moment. Anyone any ideas for this imaginary shop I want to start? Other than cheap bottles of water?

If you’ve any funny stories or observations on flying, passing through airports, then leave a comment below!

What do we make of BA?

In the end of course, it’ll come as no surprise to anyone that my second drink – my benchmark test of how caring airline staff are – never actually showed up and some 30 minutes later, we came to land at Heathrow’s incredible, amazing Terminal 5. Personally, the last time I passed through the place, I really didn’t get what all the fuss was about. To me, the whole terminal is more confusing than anything else, requiring a bit of a slalom after security through a series of overpriced retail outlets and down an escalator to the actual departures area – if you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, you then have to actually take a little train along to the right terminal of the terminal if that makes any sense (which it doesn’t, even to me and I’ve just written it). Arriving, you’ll be pleased to hear, is equally an irritation. I think arriving to somewhere is one of the best areas an airport can actually be good at, because it’s dead simple – get passengers from their plane, give them their bags, get them through passport control and customs and out the door as quickly as possible. That’s what people want – nobody’s there, after a flight, to admire the architecture or wander through corridors looking for how to get out. They just literally want to get out.

Through T5's Many Corridors...

So I disembarked, wandered along the corridors for a few minutes before arriving at this train station (as I mentioned above) to take us from one terminal to the main terminal of Terminal 5. The train took about 7 or 8 minutes to present itself, by which time there was a number of flight-loads of passengers waiting, which wasn’t great. Then, at the other end, you go up a series of escalators for some reason, walk along a corridor, then (if you spot them) have to go back down another series of escalators to reach passport control. Where I waited 45 minutes. Somebody’s going to comment or write to me that Heathrow is a huge airport and what do I expect but no seriously, such a confusing layout and time robbery is not on at all. Example; I arrived to Frankfurt airport, also a large international airport at 19:55 last week in the midst of the New Year’s air-rush of people trying to get home and back to work. I was already standing out the front waiting for a bus by 20:17 (with my bags), and home by 20:50. Literally, it’s a model of efficiency (as you might expect from the Germans) – you get off plane, walk to passport control, the baggage belt is literally the other side of it and the bags are always already waiting and then you leave, the end. They manage it, so why can’t anywhere else? Even Dublin to be fair has made great strides in Terminal 2 with this where you get off the plane, up an escalator, and follow the same corridor to passport control, baggage, customs and even the car park without turning or changing level.

The shopping centre.

On the way back, things were however slightly better I suppose. I’ve gathered that Terminal 5 is one of those things I just can’t bring myself to like – it often feels designed more for aesthetics and pleasantries than actual usability. Passing through security, there’s literally just a shopping centre on the other side, which if you’ve any sense, you’ll skip right through. The only shop we did want to actually buy anything from was the WH Smith, and the queue there literally snaked from the checkout down past the drinks, looping around fiction somewhere and back to the entrance. Of course if I wanted to buy something from the Caviar House or whatever it’s called, I wouldn’t have had to wait even a second but it goes to show what most people actually want from an airport shop – a newspaper, drink and a bar chocolate. It actually took us so long to get these items from the shop, that we began to fear missing our flight and ended up taking off at a gallop to get down towards our gate, which was thankfully close by.

In conclusion, would I willingly choose Heathrow to transit through? Nope – I couldn’t, it’s not built to facilitate quick and fast movement around the place (or so it seems), even though Terminal 5 is a very nice building. Would I opt to deliberately go there again? I don’t know, for me, BA’s service isn’t that awe-inspiring to merit the extra few bucks travelling with them and since airspace over Heathrow always seems to be congested and causing delays, I’ll probably try Stansted or Gatwick in future and see if that’s any quicker. If anyone has any thoughts on travelling to London, the easiest or quickest ways, or comments, I’d love to hear them!

Last year for me personally, was a time of pretty much all-round change in terms of moving from Malaysia back to Ireland, getting bored within about 3 weeks, and then moving on to Germany where I’ve been working in internet marketing happily ever since. While I’d like to think things will stay relatively stable for the next year, you never really know and for now, in spite of the recession/depression/rain in Ireland, it’s really lovely to be back home, even if only for a short while. And strangely, it sometimes feels like Ireland’s sort of turned a corner in terms of the ‘badness’ of the last few years – but that could be just rose-tinted spectacles and grass is greener, etc. Who knows?

In terms of keeping the blog going, I’ve been at this site in its varying forms, for over 3 years now and intend to keep it going, although obviously that all depends on how much time is available to put into it. And, as you’ll have seen, after 3 years of paying hosting costs out of my own pocket for it, I’ve started dabbling a bit in ways for it to maybe at least semi-fund itself. So I’m pleased to have eBookers, Expedia and Hotels.com ads on some pages, which I think makes the advertising at least more relevant and less irritating than other advertising. What do you think? Of course, I’m still always looking to hear what everyone thinks of the site, or what I could do to improve or what you’d like to see more/less of – e-mail me, andy [at] youlovethatsh.com or you can get me any of the other ways up in the menu above.

Anyway, I’ll be right back in a week or two with my more usual posts, but until then, have a great start into 2012!

Cheap, Toronto, let's do it...

A couple of years ago, the opportunity presented itself by way of sheer cheapness, to travel with British Airways from Dublin to Toronto via London Heathrow. I was excited for all the nerdy travel reasons – first up, my previous trips to Canada had been with renowned cattle-class specialists Zoom Airlines, who had since ceased to exist, and had been of a quality ranging from relatively to completely awful. Secondly, BA had only moved into the disastrously-inaugurated Terminal 5 about a year ago, and with all the problems now seemingly solved, I was keen to see this piece of aviation magnificence for my good self. Finally, BA is in theory, one of the only full-service legacy carriers still providing some degree of comfort, and since I had taken Air France to Hong Kong a few months earlier and had been suitably impressed, I was keen to see what the Brits had to offer exactly.

Long-time readers of You Love Thatsh will then no doubt remember that the trip, in terms of travel experience, wasn’t exactly incredible, and even though it wasn’t 100% BA’s fault, I can’t help blame them somehow for at least some of it. Firstly, in spite of any advances made for British Airways in Heathrow, the usual problems remained. Namely, flight congestion landing in Heathrow, then the ‘Irish’ gates being quite some distance from terminal 1, where the apparently land, which is in turn quite far away from BA’s home at terminal 5 and finishing at terminal 5, where nobody’s boarding card issued in their home countries was being recognised at the security screening area (and I mean nobody’s), forcing lines of people at the security screening counters, then the check-in desks, then re-joining the security line, the fronts of which now had more people trying and failing to get through. The plane ride meanwhile (the part involving BA) had three main problems from my perspective;

One of T5's good value shops, no doubt...

1. The ridiculous tightness. I asked for an additional beer and it was, on the outbound part of the flight, treated with the same enthusiasm you might treat someone asking to decant all the fuel, mid-flight, out of the plane.

2. The ridiculous heat situation. For whatever reason, the aircraft in both directions had no way individual air vents, and this coincided quite awfully with the fact that the heating was cranked right up, and we were en-route to Toronto in winter, so I was appropriately dressed.

3. The racist. I also had the very bad fortune on the way back to be sat beside an impatient racist who imparted on me his admiration for Canada and why he was considering moving there, having been there on business, because they didn’t seem to be as open to other cultures as the UK was apparently fast becoming. Then, upon our arrival in Heathrow, he was out of his seat faster than someone with explosive diarrhoea to make his connecting flight to Derry. When he realised he couldn’t actually get off, he then proceeded to verbally berate the stewardess for making the plane late; as it was surely her entire fault. Not really BA’s fault, as I say, but she then took it out on me as she knew we were sitting together and decided against saying thanks or goodbye, or whatever, when I got off, like she did with everyone else.

Now I don’t usually do repeats, but you can imagine that this particular story seems to be a little exceptional and not what one would normally expect. So when the opportunity presented itself to fly with BA last Friday from Frankfurt to Heathrow, I thought hey, let’s give BA and Terminal 5 a try and see if I missed something last time.

Let's see if we can get to like each other...

So here we go, user experience, Frankfurt to London. The first thing you’ll notice in Frankfurt isn’t the friendly staff waiting to greet you. On the contrary, there were two women, one dealing with someone, one on the phone. And the phone call was obviously of critical importance, because she stayed on it and didn’t acknowledge me whatsoever. I’ve been in and out of Frankfurt Airport so many times I can’t even count, but nothing remarkable there – it’s a little bit like everything in Germany, a bit bland, a touch bare but does exactly what you want it to do, which is gets you in and gets you out much faster than nearly any other large European airport I know. I can usually get home and have the coffee machine on, for example, within one hour of the plane touching down.
So, on the whole, I think it’s great.

Anyway, all onto the plane – the queue to get on was actually extremely long, but thankfully entertainment was generously provided by a man and his wife who were dressed like they were just returning from a shopping trip in Milan and heading home to Monaco. Their 5^th home, that is. They kept trying to queue jump me, not because they had a valid reason in particular, but because they were BA Gold members or whatever and would normally have been afforded the luxury of boarding before everyone else. Except that there was no priority boarding lane, so in the absence of that, queue jumping was obviously the next best option. I’m not sure what it is, but BA seems to keep a relatively elderly fleet of planes and it’s noticeable to be honest – but as we carried on, I let that one slip.

After the on-board drink was served, I decided to see if enthusiasm for second drinks was any better all these years later and so, waiting until someone actually asked if there was anything else, I made my demand and waited…would it show up? Read the Second Part now!

Have any of you had a strange travel experience, like mine with the racist? Or an airline you think is way over-rated? Leave me a comment or drop me a line, I’d love to hear…

Good morning Earls Court...

After what can only be described (sarcastically) as another of the most restful nights sleeps’ of my life in London, we were back up at the crack of dawn. Once again, I should emphasise, it wasn’t particularly our choice to be up at the crack of dawn – more so, somebody in the room next to us had decided to go use the toilet first thing. And as I said in the last post, all the doors were strangely spring loaded so as soon as they decided to let the door close, we were more or less resigned to getting up early.

So, up we go and off, once again, to the local Subway for the early breakfast special deal. London is expensive after all, and I’d much rather sacrifice the traditional British breakfast – which anyway is very similar to the traditional Irish breakfast – in favour of not spending so much.

Crowds!

We didn’t have so much time on our second day in London, so we got through the breakfast as quickly as possible and went straight out, with Anna wanting to see some of ‘real’ London this time around, so we headed off in search of Camden town and the famous market. Well, as tastes of ‘real’ London go, it was certainly that – it was so packed, that we queued about 5 minutes just to get out of the tube station, then had to try and merge with the oncoming human traffic with more care than driving on a motorway. So, surprise surprise, Camden was already packed with the streets looking like the areas around Croke Park after a GAA match. We wandered around for what must have been all of 20 minutes before getting lost, a bit frustrated and sick of looking at signs warning of pickpockets. So I’m sorry Camden town, we left almost as soon as we possibly could. But not before queuing another 5 minutes to get back into the tube station.

My art project...perhaps.

Next stop, with time getting tighter and tighter, was Notting Hill to see what it had to offer us. I won’t lie, we got off at Notting Hill (which actually looks terrible when you first emerge from the tube station), wandered down the road a bit until we came across a bunch of hardcore Russian protesters who were being steadily outnumbered by the police, then wandered back up the road a bit again until we passed the tube station going in the opposite direction. And then, quite simply, we were just out of time so we had to go back into the tube station having seen only one street of Notting Hill (but very well). We headed back in the direction of Earls Court to retrieve our luggage from the undoubtedly very safe open shed that we had been told would be fine to leave our bags in some hours earlier, and to get some lunch. Surprisingly, our luggage was still in the open shed, but that may have had more to do with the fact that the police were now swarming our former accommodation seemingly in search of a resident criminal. Yes, we truly do stay in all the classy places.

Exciting Heathrow

Moving along, the next stop was somewhere to eat, and with some money left over, we were finally able to relax a little on that front. We headed down the road from our place and came to arrive, just as the rain began to fall, at some Indian place called Masala Zone, which was really only noticeable due to the crazy artwork that was all over the inside of the place. But, as food places go, it was absolutely delicious (hence the actual mention).

Time was up, so bags in hand, we raced back to Heathrow as quickly as possibly as we could, checking in our bags and then seeing what else we could possibly afford in Terminal 5’s overly-expensive shops – which wasn’t much – and getting on the plane back to Frankfurt.

A good trip – yes; but a restful and cheap trip – absolutely not!

Keep an eye out in the next week or two for my review on flying with British Airways, Heathrow Airport and the missing ‘second beer’.

The luxury residence. No sarcasm.

I won’t get into the travel experience with British Airways or Heathrow, but suffice to say it was nothing special – in other words, it was one queue after the other. Onwards to my accommodation – since Anna and I were on an extreme budget, we went for a room at some place in Earls Court beginning with Barkston. It was the cheapest place, absolutely guaranteed, with any sort of a decent location in all of London and with a double room so we didn’t have to sleep in a dorm room like we were on a secondary school trip to Irish college. To say it was luxury would be a gross overstatement – our room was at the very top of some building (which necessitated numerous flights of stairs), and the windows and doors were paper thin, allowing all noise from outside and inside contaminate our room. For added effect, we had a group of excitable Spanish students down the corridor so a restless night was almost guaranteed for the first night. And even when they did finally pipe down, there was deliveries to neighbouring buildings seemingly through the night, so there was never really a good chance to actually sleep soundly. To perfect it, the doors all had some sort of spring loading mechanism so when someone did innocently go to the toilet in the middle of the night, unless they carefully pulled the door into the doorframe again, it would absolutely slam shut practically waking the dead.

Good Morning London!

After a truly restless night, and with both of us involuntarily crying from so little sleep throughout the night, we took off the next morning to meet a friend of mine from many years past, who generously agreed to give of her time and bring us on a walking tour of London. We commended this grand walking tour at Trafalgar Square and took off, trying to pack in as many sights as possible, launching ourselves from the square down towards Westminster (avoiding the protests along the way for some unknown country fighting for its freedom), right along towards Buckingham Palace, into Hyde Park (to include a detour through some other park because I couldn’t possibly follow the path, given the hordes of people also out and about) and winding up for the first part of the walking tour in some frighteningly tacky attempt at a German Christmas market. Sadly, we know what a German Christmas market should look like and this poor imitation which seemed to blend the very best of stereotypes from across the world (the one or two Canadian stands seemed to rely heavily on having an oversize moose’s head sticking out the top of the stall) all into one. Funny though, all the same.

Ahh! The ocean...

London is expensive, that much is for absolute certainty and in a bid to keep costs down, we then spent most of the second half of our walking tour in search for a cheap place to eat. We wandered around, incidentally seeing a number of other sights as we went, becoming increasingly desperate to avoid the ever-present Pret outlets. In the end, things got so desperate that we literally found the first place that looked halfway decent and stopped there. The rest of the walking tour was fine but for the two constants throughout the whole trip to London; everything is ridiculously expensive. Secondly, London is not a city I find to be liveable – there’s overcrowding at every turn. You queue to get out of an underground station, then you queue again to get onto the street, then queue to cross at the lights while the traffic also queue’s, then when you’re finally on the street on a path, you can’t really walk properly because there’s half a million other people also wandering aimlessly along the path. But the best example of this was our trip (momentarily) into the M&M’s store, where we somehow were going against the sea of people on our way in, and then unable to move inside the store, somehow against the sea of people again trying to get out. No matter what, it was a lose-lose situation.

But, after so much overcrowding and overpricing, the first pint of the evening tasted great and we had another peaceful night’s sleep to surely look forward to…

Continued – Hello London – Part II is Here!

Frankfurt's Cathedral

When I moved to Germany back in April (God, was it really that long ago already?), there was only a small number of things I was really looking forward to – one was the availability (not to mention the price) of beer, which had been relatively restricted in Malaysia. Next after that, was the availability (again, to say nothing of the price) of good meaty meals, something which I also seriously lacked in Malaysia. Then, there were a few other things before the next one, Christmas Markets. Christmas markets, from experience, basically combine the previous two things in one delightful sub-arctic atmosphere. So it was with a certain element of joy that I noted the Christmas market opening in Frankfurt last week. We went along (of course) for the first night – but unfortunately things weren’t off to a great start. Since I travel from what is essentially another city every day for work, I didn’t arrive home until around 8:30 in the evening, and it turns out that the Frankfurt Christmas Market finishes every night at a rather family-friendly 9pm.

So we arrived, looked around, I grabbed some food and with that, the shutters came rolling down and we suddenly found ourselves standing in a rather spooky empty fairground atmosphere.

Not ones to give up at the first sign of trouble, we went again on Saturday (much earlier this time) to get a real taste of Frankfurt’s very own Christmas market and hopefully finally get a long-awaited Christmas market beer.

Spot what's wrong here...

Alas, it wasn’t to be. Frankfurt’s a large city; a large and easy to get to city. Not just for Germans, but for pretty much everyone in Europe. Look at the photo on the right and see if you can spot the problem – it was like most of Europe had been tipped out into the square. At one point, a marching band had set up at the area that seemed to show the most opportunity to turn into a bottleneck and began playing. Sure enough, within moments, human traffic came to a standstill as some stopped to watch the impromptu performance, others were at the information stand asking for directions (probably on how to escape), while still others were lined up in the ever-growing queues trying to buy something at one of the many stands that were also crowded into the same tiny space. After I got crammed in nicely behind a woman with one of those double-sized prams, with some elderly visitors to my left and some Americans who seemed to be in no rush  to my right, I began to think that I’d be with the marching band right to the very end. Getting a beer slowly went out of question, along with buying the first Christmas steak-in-a-bun (I’m sure there’s a more sophisticated German name for this meaty treat), and just escaping became the main thing.

The House of Meats...

Finally, after there was sufficient movement to allow me to elbow my way out of the blockade, I moved in the direction of the roundabout and from there towards a dark alleyway (as I say, anything to make good my escape) and vowed never to return to the Christmas market on a weekend, recalling all the brochures I’ve seen in travel agents in Ireland throughout my life touting the experience of visiting the ‘German markets for a weekend break’. So, consider this a warning to all tourists thinking of visiting the Christmas markets – yes you’ll love them, yes they’re very awesome but yes, you’ll also irritate me strongly by being there and forcing me to fight my way through relentless crowds just for an innocent steak-in-a-bun and a Christmas beer. On the bright side, the Christmas markets located just right in the middle of the old town alongside the Cathedral, and taken altogether (and imagining in my head that my elbow wasn’t being knocked every 2 seconds by some more crowds), the place looks lovely and is enough, even in November, to make you feel like hanging a stocking up in the living room overnight and seeing what happens.

If I’m really lucky, I’ll find a beer and a steak in there the next morning…! Until then though, I’m going to try again in the middle of the week and hope I’ll actually be able to move this time…

The results of the time warp...

So you can imagine my disgust when, one morning recently, it didn’t show up and I took off, down into the depths of Frankfurt railway station looking for an alternative. I ended up taking a train to somewhere called Niedernhausen. It was slow, stopped at every station and seemed to go on for an eternity. But the only good thing to be said for it, was very abruptly and with no warning of any sort, we came through some sort of mountain pass and were literally staring right down into what looked like a medieval town that had been stuck in some sort of time warp. No joke, I actually nearly hopped off the train to see if it was now being pulled by horse, or what was going on.

After passing through this place that very perfectly gave the mild illusion of a time warp, I knew I’d have to return one day when I didn’t have to worry about getting to work. So, for the weekend, we set off to this town – Eppstein – some 30 minutes out of Frankfurt city centre. And, as if on cue, the train came through the same mountain pass and there was the castle ruins, the old buildings (the only buildings actually) of the town, and the mountains enveloping the place, like we had once again entered a momentary time warp that could only last for as long as the train was travelling between one mountain and the next. The first thing you notice when you hop off the train, is that every road leading out of town is sloping dangerously – normally, when I look at a ‘hilly road’ I don’t actually question how I can walk up it safely, but the very first road we took was more like going for a mountain climb, and at one point I slipped on a leaf which very nearly turned into ‘return to go, do not collect £200’ moment.

Eppstein's house...

The town itself looks like a land untouched by modernity – strangely. Sure there’s cars parked on the streets and the usual stuff that brings you back to the present day, but each and every building is old and looks well preserved (or recently built) and most unusually, on a Saturday afternoon, we came across literally only about 3 people in the whole town; it was almost like we were walking through a deserted film set and everyone had gone for a cup of coffee. The alleyways all led from old cobbled street to another, and the only food options were traditional German, Italian or Doner Kebab.

Looking down on the townsfolk

The centrepiece of the town is undoubtedly its old castle ruins – but even they have a funny twist in this town. On our way up, we noticed there was actually a mailbox just outside the castle’s tall gates in the name of some man with the surname ‘Eppstein’, which began to get us wondering if a man actually owned the whole town and still lived in the castle. When we got to the castle’s gates, we pushed one of the gates open – which triggered a bell, despite our best efforts to keep it from ringing – and just like that, a man appeared in front of us, presumably Eppstein himself who demanded a Euro from each of us to explore the castle and after paying, told us we could just go wander around by ourselves and go anywhere that was open. So, for the price of one Euro to the man they call ‘Eppstein’, you can basically have an entire castle to yourself for as long as you wish.

We wandered around, took in the views afforded from the castle, wandered to the top of the guard tower (which took a while) and looked down on the whole of the town – as I imagine Eppstein himself does, regularly – and tried to open every door that was closed (quite successfully in most cases) before getting a bit tired up of looking down on the residents and wanting to eat something.

The location of our Schnitzeltag banquet!

For anyone thinking of visiting Eppstein, do it on Saturday. As we wandered back through the town in search of some fare befitting such an antiquated and traditional-looking town, we came across some nameless German restaurant (I say German, because it had those off-brown windows that seem to be synonymous with traditional eateries) where we were thrilled to discover that Saturday is ‘Schnitzel day’, and each meal was €6.50; beer being €2, which made things extra satisfactory. Not only that, but the whole place was empty too (I believe the woman was actually trying to close though, so that could explain it), giving our waitress/receptionist ample time to also practice her tour guide skills.

After drinking its beer, eating its food and wandering around its castle, we were more than ready to say goodbye to both Eppstein and his town (if he exists) and return to the modern day – knowing that one day, we might return to see it again…on a Saturday.

So here we go, this episode I’m going to hit you with my final 5, here we go:

A Doner Kebab isn’t what it is in other countries.

Unusually fresh...

I’m not sure how it is in countries all around the world, but what I do know is that in Ireland at least, the juicy doner kebab is almost exclusively the cuisine of a night out. You simply don’t announce to your family that you’re back home for a few days and that nothing would be more appropriate than you meeting up for a family meal in a doner kebab shop. It just doesn’t happen, and to be honest, it just isn’t right.

I’d actually go so far as to say that on a small number of nights out that I’ve been on in Dublin, I’ve woken up not with the taste of alcohol in my mouth, but with the unmistakable and significantly inferior taste of kebab meat. In Ireland, the meat in many cases is of such questionable quality, the vegetables so old and soggy, that no amount of tooth brushing can rid your mouth of the awful flavours for at least 48 hours. It’s seriously that terrorising. But in Germany, a doner kebab is something that can and should actually be enjoyed. It’s ok to suggest going for a kebab for lunch for example, without coming across as a total football hooligan. Then again, it may just be that the meat actually looks like meat.

Cyclists are rude. Deal with it.
In Ireland, motorists get angry because cyclists jump red lights and they can’t, because they’re sitting in a car. In Germany, motorists get angry because cyclists do precisely whatever they want, whenever they want, regardless of what road they happen to be on. Main road? No problem. Let’s all cycling in a pack of 5-across. And strangely, even pedestrians harbour a strong loathing for cyclists, as they constantly jump off the road, skip the beautifully paved cycle path, and jump onto the footpath, which is obviously a footpath, because there’s a little white bit of tar shaped like a mum and a child walking hand-in-hand.

Maybe it’s because they’ve had a serious head-start on a lot of other countries, but cyclists, especially in Frankfurt are bordering on the extremely rude. They’re not just angry; they’re like a bunch of honey bees after you’ve just nicked the honey. Nowhere is safe – certainly not the roads, paths, buildings or kerbs – maybe the river?

Crisis!

Public Toilets should not be counted on.
When I leave my house in Germany, I often use the toilet twice just to be sure. Because I know that in Frankfurt, there’s only one shopping centre that has easily accessible toilets – there’s actually another shopping centre right next door to that one, but they charge 70 cent to use the facilities. And there are absolutely no toilets in the rest of the city really, unless you happen to have your office there.

I find this very unusual, since German motorways have to be some of the most well-toileted in the world. Literally – every 20km’s at most, there’s something one can use to relieve oneself, even if just a corrugated metal shed. Let me put it this way – this may be more of a rant, because yes, I’ve fallen victim a number of times now to this lack of conveniences.

This'll be a 'tray coffee'...

The fancier the train, the better the balance.
Something I always find slightly comical about travelling on German intercity trains, is that apparently the fancier the train happens to be, the better the person selling the snacks and drinks is at balancing – no, seriously. If you’re on an old Intercity train for example, then they come ploughing through the aisle with a big trolley and the coffee ready-made. But for some reason, when you travel on the slightly superior ICE trains, the woman just rocks through the aisles holding a tray with a bunch of coffee cups already made in one hand, like the snacks on the other trains are only for mere mortals who need something to help wash down the intense coffee on offer (just to note, it isn’t in the slightest, it’s more like coloured hot water). I know it sounds strange, but it sort of has to be seen to be believed.

German wine is fine.
Before coming here, I didn’t really know much about German wine, and it seems to have a reputation abroad for being not great, but actually, it seems that the Germans are just keeping it to themselves. While I’ve been here, I’ve rarely come across one person who doesn’t drink German wine. Who knew? It’s obviously a situation where they just don’t want to share and there’s only so much German wine to go around so it’s best kept in the country – and since I’m in the country for now, I agree.

My only picture for bmi...note I haven't seen a plane look like this since easily mid-2005...

Being something of a frequent traveller (considering my age and that I’ve no company paying for this frequent travel), I’ve always been a bit free and easy when it comes to signing up for any ‘loyalty’ scheme that was offered, be it the Emirates reward program – which I subsequently forgot to actually send the application form off for – to the Air Canada Aeroplan scheme some years ago, and all others in between. The last few years though, I’ve more or less narrowed it right down to Aer Lingus (being the national airline of Ireland), BMI (formerly British Midland International, then BMI, and now seemingly British Midland International again) and finally, Etihad. I’m more or less a couple of years and a heap of flights into them all, so I thought a review of my experience with airline frequent flyer schemes was in order. Especially these three.

To begin with, I’ll open the discussion by saying that in a few years of trying to clock up miles, I haven’t had a single free flight, or a night’s hotel stay. So, let’s continue and I’m going to start the first post with a review of my thoughts on BMI, formerly (and possibly presently) British Midland International.

BMI I joined some years back when I was travelling around the world, simply because I was travelling on a Star Alliance RTW ticket and they were geographically the closest airline to where I was commencing (Dublin) – and I also, from past experience, think that they’re a nice outfit. Besides, they never got as tight as let’s say Aer Lingus when things got tough, and they’re already back to giving out little snacks for free again, and in our house at least, free shortbread (or equivalent) on a flight makes it a winner. The trouble is, while I’ve clocked up loads of miles with them, a few things have happened.

All the miles but none of the activities...

1) I now dislike a number of the other Star Alliance airlines, namely Air Canada and Air China, who collectively swindled me out of a flight on my ticket and then told me it had been my fault for not letting them know – which I had – that I wouldn’t take their alternative, which hadn’t been an alternative anyway, since they just changed my ticket and gave me no notice. Then Air Canada’s generous and thoughtful support ‘person’ was as difficult and obstructive as she could be, before passing me onto the refunds department, who never wrote me back despite reminder e-mails; and I doubt they will, since that was 2009. So after that, I decided I never wished to be travelling with either again, regardless of the price difference – especially Air Canada since their version of engaging with the customer seems to involve being rude to them and pointing out “conditions” to them like a bunch of lawyers, which they in fact have not abided by in the first place.
2) The trouble is, I still like BMI, they’re awesome as most airlines go. But I signed up with them in 2009 for this trip, then moved to Malaysia the next year where they (and most of the Star Alliance airlines are not at all active), and having returned to Europe, I’m now living in Germany and simply can’t afford the scandalous fares that their partners at Lufthansa charge, so I’ve ended up reverting to either Aer Lingus or anything else. Anyway, Lufthansa are tighter than an Irish finance minister during a recent budget when it comes to awarding points – you could fly to the moon and back, but if you’ve managed to get anywhere near a decent deal with them, then they only award 25% of the miles, or something ridiculous to that effect.

Yes! From 'From' and where to I wonder...?!

3) I can afford to take a trip or two with them, but since I live in Germany and don’t wish to call their UK call centre number, it’s unfortunate that for many months now despite my requests (although their Twitter team always respond pleasantly), their website for members really doesn’t work – certainly it doesn’t allow you to book flights, and apparently the hotels section is also experiencing ‘technical difficulties’. On a side-note, I’ve no idea why, but my Firefox simply doesn’t want to remember the password for the login either, so I always end up trying to memorise it which doesn’t work and as a result, I’ve had about 7 ‘forgot password’ e-mails from them in the 2 or so years. Actually, I’d love to make their website work and give them a list of things they could do, but that’s another story.

Next week, or whenever I get a chance, I’ll give you a rundown on the Aer Lingus frequent flyer system and the many points I haven’t accumulated on it. Anyone with any thoughts on this post leave a comment below, or twitter @youlovethatsh!