Day 92: Frankfurt (Germany) to Cobble Hill (Canada)

July 30, 2014

Yesterday's experience about getting to the airport let us know that we would need lots of time today in case of further glitches. We had actually headed off one glitch late in the night, as we decided it would be best to remove the bike pedals right then. We had decided we just had to get on the shuttle, and that meant no predicted pedalling. Our pedals have a quick release mechanism, that involves a twist and a push. The twist worked ok on all pedals, but the push - would only do it on one. The others had 3 months of grit and were going nowhere. Staying very calm, we dug out the tools. Eventually I found a way to apply push with the pliers, and the pedals were free!

6 a.m. found us at the breakfast buffet. We had booked this, an extra cost item at Ibis only - normally it is included in Germany - for 10 euros each. When you do see any sort of separate breakfast price in Germany, the amount is 6 euros. Grrr. The breakfast was ok, though not stellar. However, with bored and disinterested staff, we at least could save a lot for later.

The shuttle bus that serves the Ibis and the Mercure looks big, but actually is stuffed almost entirely with seats. Luggage goes in small compartments underneath. With forced cheeriness (to help the bus driver have a positive attitude), we lifted our bikes up the steep back steps of the bus and stashed them in a small space behind the last seats. Only 20 inch or smaller bikes could succeed with this! Including the stop at the Mercure, the bus filled, including the standing room, so we were glad we had been the first in line at the first stop.

This big airport shuttle bus was not so big when it came to places to put the bikes

Here are the bikes jammed in behind the seats that were just up that rear stairway in the bus

The shuttle dropped us at Terminal 1, so the trip was not over yet. We got a cart, and wheeled the bikes inside the terminal, following signs for Terminal 2. 'Let's just walk there', said Dodie. At first I felt the other building was too far away and too separate for that, but I began to believe there could be an underground walkway. Nope. The signs disappeared, and so did the 'path'. A (this time) helpful employee directed us to the ... shuttle bus. So we were back at square one. Again we jammed our thankfully little bikes between some seats, and finally made it to Terminal 2. Wow, just another 9,000 km and we would be home!

The upside down apple on the building sized iPhone add, visible here through the shuttle window, has been a good landmark these last two days. Clearly they think it is arty, but we rather like to see the icon turned on its head!

A smoker "guarding" a door at the "non-smoking" Frankfurt airport. Smokers - around doors and at outdoor seating have been a bane of our trip. Often, at guesthouses, we had to choose between no air movement in our room, or leaving the window open and having smoke waft in from the ubiquitous smokers outside.

At the counter that we knew would become Air Transat in a couple of hours, we took a seat onthe edge of the luggage belts. There we met first one and then another fellow passenger. The first was Phil, who lives just a little north of Frankfurt, and who was on his way to Vancouver for a forestry seminar at UBC. The second was Nickolai, from Moldova, on his way for a swim meet. We four banded together for some of the challenges ahead.

The first challenge was an AiR Transat employee who told us not to sit on the belt edge. Since we were sort of partly back in Canada already, we challenged her. Why?, we demanded. Security issue, she replied, if the belt starts up, you could be thrown against the back wall (or some such drivel). So, one last gefahr for the books: Danger of a ticket agent luggage belt starting in motion two hours before the appearance of any ticket agent. Dodie built a little bridge across the belt with our duffel bags, and sat on that. So there,

After a time, another agent appeared and mumbled something about how we had to go vaguely from 5 to 100 meters back from the counter to "passport control". We moved, 5 meters. Later, an agent trundling a podium, and set this up in front of us, after rather rudely getting us to withdraw a further 3 meters. By this time, it was us and 300 other people getting shunted around. We finally saw what their objective was - they were setting up a system/by which passengers would show their documents, prior to going to the counter to show their documents. Umm, ok, I guess.

From the right, Nikolai and Phil join Dodie and 500 other passengers, back behind the Air Transat barrier

Phil and Nikolai help bag the bikes. They seem to have survived their unprotected trip. For this one, we did not even try to pad things inside the bags - since we know we can fix any damage once we are home.

Surprisingly, all went reasonably as expected with the bike bags and all, and there was no excitement until we cleared security. The departure lounge for the flight was closed (taped off). We challenged an agent about where to sit, and got waved generally off to the distance. So we sat in an adjacent lounge that for some reason was not taped off. Dodie now pulled out our booty from the breakfast, and we four made a lunch of it. Nicolai was particularly beat (and hungry) having flown in overnight from Moldova. Phil in time reported that our lounge was open, so we and 500 other Vancouver passengers piled in there.

Now a lady, Rhonda, approached Dodie. "Are you one of the Grampies?", she inquired. !!! It's not even as if Rhonda had been following our present tour - she was just a general Grampies reader. It turned out she was also a Bike Friday rider, and her Friday was on this flight as well. What a small world. We would have liked to talk more, and to get Rhonda's picture to put in the blog, but were disrupted by the subsequent events.

We were comparing notes when an announcement was made calling on all 500 people to leave the lounge, so they could re-enter by showing their papers. Say what? But, we did it, and all was well until I wanted to visit the WC. "WC" is the term used throughout Germany. In this case, the WC was just beyond the tape that now defined our lounge. I passed through the entrance and was called back: "Hey, where are you going?" "The WC" - no reaction - "The Vee C" I repeated, since in German W is V. "The What?""THE TOILET", I shouted for 500 people to hear. "You can't go without your little piece of paper", was the reply. (I am NOT making this up). I determined that the little piece of paper was the boarding pass stub. I returned to the other three, and got Dodie to dig out my passport and stub, and had another crack at it. At the control point I asked if I would now have to wait in line to get my piece of paper back. At this stage, I could believe anything, because they had moved 500 people through a line and back again, in order to tear their boarding passes in half, and they now proposed to collect, store, and return the stubs should any of the people have a reason to recross the line within the next 90 minutes. And oh, after boarding, the plane sat at the ramp for an extra hour, waiting for clearance to push back. - I think TransAt and Frankfurt Airport generally need to hire some efficiency consultants!

The actual flight back to Canada took ten hours - a big strain on the tailbone, we found. However, the at seat entertainment system is good, and I got to watch four movies in a row. Most of the passengers were German, or at least European, something that could easily be seen on the Canadian side, at the Immigration reception, where those with Canadian passports got a fast track through. On the plane I was actively embarrassed by the food offerings for the largely German passengers. These were all Canadian stuff - from orange cheese, to gooey/fluffy pizza, to Oreo cookies.

Later, I was ranting about this to Sandra, and she said that in fact Oreos, anyway, are seen as a regional specialty in Germany, and travellers often bring them back to much acclaim back home. OK, whatever!

We helped Nikolai complete his customs declaration, which was as mysterious to him as the German language registration cards we were normally asked to complete at guesthouses werw to us. There was a lot of "person 1, person 2" and "this section for residents and that section for visitors" stuff to it, not to mention "backward" requirements for DD/MM/YY dates, and suchlike. The card ended with some crossouts, which to us were completely trivial, since our expectation is that Canada does nothing with the information anyway. However, Nikolai wanted to do it right, and carefully recopied this "homework" on a fresh card.

It turned out that "Canada" was very interested in what someone so exotic as a Moldovan was doing at our door, and Nikolai got a thorough grilling at the first line of immigration officers. I was watching from the other side - to which I had been fast tracked through. They wanted to see his return ticket, the name of who he would be staying with in Canada, and about 15 minutes of other stuff. This despite a very official Canadian visa in his passport.

When Nikolai did pass stage one, we proceeded to customs, he clutching that carefully done declaration - covering the absolutely nothing he was bringing in. He was beside me as we handed our cards in, and suddenly, he was gone. I thought he must be up ahead with Dodie and Phil, but no.

"Hey, you guys, where is Nikolai?". We backtracked and found they had grabbed him away for further interrogation. "If we don't like his answers, we will deport him immediately", the officers told Dodie.

Now this raised all sorts of red flags with us. As Canadians, we were deeply distressed by tasering and to us, murder, of Polish visitor Robert Dziekański by RCMP right on this spot, in 2007. See HERE for that story.

So we left behind our most powerful resource, Dodie, and proceeded out of the secure zone to find our lift - Sandra.

Dodie cautioned the agents that Nikolai had only minimal English skills, and incredibly was told "Then he should not be travelling in Canada". They also claimed to have interpreter services, but I wonder how many Moldovan speakers they could commandeer, how fast.

Dodie and I found we could speak to each other across the secure zone boundary, a plus. In the Dziekański case, his mother was outside the zone and could not find out what was happening inside.

Anyway, some might say the Grampies overreacted - for in 30 minutes Dodie came out, with Nikolai. He was stressed by the grilling, but no harm came to him. We used our phone to unite him with his friends from Coquitlam, and all was well.

Should we ever take the Eurovelo 6 route through to the Black Sea, we sure hope we would receive a better welcome in Romania and Moldova than Nikolai did in our country!

Some of our fellow passengers. They were mostly German speakers. We felt sorry for them, having to be subjected to Canadian food for however long they would stay in our country.

Phil meets Sandra. They did resort to speaking German to each other, though Phil had said he is frustrated to find Germans everywhere he goes in the world, and prefers to try to speak English while abroad.

Dodie exits with Nikolai. We were much relieved to see this.

After enjoying the as low as .70 euro cent price for "eis" in Germany, and chafing at the 1.80 euro price in Strasbourg, we find $5.50 (3.80 euros) at the ferry terminal in Vancouver. Grrr.

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