Crazed Apathy – Terminal Decline: Prague to Frankfurt (Lost In Transit #2)

Have you ever had a sense that something bad was only going to get worse? That happened to me in Prague Airport as my flight on Lufthansa was preparing for on-time departure. The plane was being pushed back from the gate when it suddenly came to a halt. This was the first sign that trouble lay ahead. The plane did not move forward or back, it just sat there. As time passed without an update there was no doubt in my mind that the flight was not going to Frankfurt. I am pretty sure that I was not the only one having those same thoughts when the pilot announced that two of the wheels had low tire pressure. This was not going to be a quick fix.

Any malfunction on such a large piece of crucial equipment that must transport passengers safely at altitudes higher than Everest, cannot be utilized until the deficiency is corrected, checked, and double checked. Too many lives are at stake for an airline to take any chances. The easiest thing for Lufthansa to do was put everyone on another plane. Easier said than done. The upshot was that my stay in Prague would be extended by several hours. It also meant a missed connection. I would be forced into an overnight stay in Frankfurt courtesy of Lufthansa.  

Money Talks - A Sterile Environment

Any minor malfunction on such a large piece of crucial equipment that must transport passengers safely at altitudes higher than Everest, cannot be utilized until the deficiency is corrected, checked, and double checked. Too many lives are at stake for an airline to take any chances. The easiest thing for Lufthansa to do was put everyone on another plane. Easier said than done. The upshot was that my stay in Prague would be extended by several hours. This also meant a missed connection. I would be forced into an overnight stay in Frankfurt courtesy of Lufthansa.  An extra day in Europe did not seem so bad. I would have preferred Prague over Frankfurt, but I did not want to risk another missed connection again the next day. Flying to Frankfurt would get me one step closer to home.

I had been to Frankfurt before. Spending a Saturday night in the city and then enjoying an early morning walk around one of the older parts of the city down by the Main River. My impression of Frankfurt was of a prosperous, but rather dull city. Frankfurt is Germany’s financial capital and like so many places built on wealth, the city felt sterile. Its inner workings hidden behind tinted windows in tall glass buildings where men in suits line their pockets with Euros. A friend and I wandered into the city center on that Saturday evening. We found a city that strangely reminded us of home. American city centers are not exactly known to be hubs of pedestrians enjoying the night life. The opposite is true in Europe. Well except for Frankfurt in my limited experience. Besides a restaurant packed with couples and friends imbibing copious amounts of beer, there was not much nightlife in the center of Frankfurt that evening. I did observe some wayward youth in Goth attire taking nips from a bottle in public. This was the only real color in Frankfurt, other than the color of money.

That first visit to Frankfurt reminded me of what I had always imagined that Switzerland must be like. Everything clean swept and filled with inhabitants whose main hobby is making money. Because of my lukewarm opinion of the city, I was not especially looking forward to having another go at it.  Since I had little choice in the matter, I would have to make the best of an unexpected visit. Perhaps I could find something of greater interest this time around. The problem was that I would once again have a limited amount of time. My rebooked flight left Prague several hours later than originally scheduled. Not only was I missing a connection, I was also going to miss an opportunity to do something worthwhile on what was fast becoming a wasted day.

Free of Charge - Complementary Indifference

There are few things more maddening than spending half a day standing in an airport. The Prague Airport is nice, in the way that anonymous, spotlessly clean environments full of people either irritated, angry or half-asleep are nice. The airport was harmless to everything except my mental health. This was not how I wanted to spend my final hours in Prague. And yet, this experience was as much a part of my trip as anything else. It would certainly turn out to be more memorable than I had expected. The sheer banality was unforgettable.Little did I realize when I landed in Frankfurt that my idea of the city was about to change. Rather than staying somewhere near the city as I had naïvely imagined, the hotel paid for by Lufthansa was close to the airport.

I was relegated to a netherworld with other stranded passengers who were weary from stressing over missed connections. It is astonishing just how tired one can get from sitting for hours in a climate-controlled environment and staring longingly at a departure board. The cure for this could have been a peaceful respite at the hotel. That would not happen at this one. It was functional to the point of mediocre. The hotel felt like a three-star refugee camp for orphaned travelers. A place where the lost congregated together, clutching complementary tickets for a buffet of mystery meat and greasy potatoes. This was all that the hotel had going for it. Of course, there was a hot shower, a semi-comfortable bed, and television channels with a range of ghastly daytime options. Besides this, everything was fine.

Mediocrity & Madness – The Meaning of Nowhere

The travel writer Jan Morris once wrote a book called, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere. I enjoyed the book immensely. Morris set forth Trieste’s place in the world as quixotic in the extreme. The city was not quite Italian, sort of Mitteleuropean, and strangely sedate for a place that was forever finding itself on a frontier. Trieste was the type of place that could never be pigeonholed. It had multiple identities and no single set identity. Trieste was pliable and unfathomable.

A similar, though much duller book could be written called the Frankfort Airport Hotel and the Meaning of Nowhere*. The hotel was a temporary home for strangers that made them feel unwelcome without really trying. This was not done with inconsideration or rudeness. Instead, it was done with indifference and mediocrity that could drive anyone to madness. If the hotel’s walls could talk, they would speak of the fitful naps, restless impulses, and crazed apathy suffered by guests. The art of heartlessness had been perfected here. And somehow, I had to figure out a way to make the most out of what was becoming a mid-afternoon malaise. There was only one thing to do, start walking.