Frankfurt Business Trip

This week was another business trip to Frankfurt, Germany.  From Brno it's about a seven hour drive to Frankfurt.

David, Slavek, Martin, and I were there for three days of customer meetings.  Fun, fun, fun.  

It was a productive trip but it felt so good to get back home and to sleep in my own bed.

My Second Kyndryl Business Trip

Following the Pet Shop Boys concert in Berlin on Saturday night, I was back in Brno on Sunday, because on Monday I had to go to back to Frankfurt for my second Kyndryl Business trip.  It looks like I should be here more or less quarterly. 

It was a good trip but there were some very long days.  A group of us did manage to make it in to the city one night for dinner and to check out a bit of the old town. 

Just as there are lots of differences in how English is spoken, German has the same thing.  Only maybe more.  Hessisch is the local German dialect spoken around here.  Fortunately my Hochdeutsch works here but I guess I need to pick up a little of the local lingo.  There is some specific local vocabulary but in general, a lot of the hard sounds become softer.

"auf" becomes "uff"

"P" gets pronounced more like "B"

-ig sounds like -isch

I'm sure that there's more to it.  I doubt that I'll ever blend in like a local.  Berliners usually think that I come from the south due to my accent and vocabulary.

While I was in Frankfurt, Natalie managed to get the weekend off wanted to get up to Berlin to see Claudia and Tünde before she had to return to Wellington.  I already had a Nat visit but one visit is never enough and we decided to surprise Tünde with a double godparent visit. 

On the way to Vienna

On Friday I had a train trip back to Brno via Vienna.  Natalie booked a sleeper train from Budapest to Berlin.  I got home, unpacked, showered, repacked and jumped on another train so that I could meet up with her in Břeclav.  The only glitch is that her train ended up being delayed almost three hours.  

First Kyndryl Business Trip

I was in Germany this past week on my first business trip with Kyndryl.

When I was with IBM in Atlanta, I usually travelled to meet with clients in California, Virginia, and Ohio.  While here in Czechland, I've been lucky enough to visit England, Ireland, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, Netherlands, India, Poland and Slovakia.  I honestly can't even count how many times I've been to Bratislava and Wrocław.

This week I was in Frankfurt to meet with a client and while there we signed a new mega five-year deal.  It was a great visit but it was a lot of work and now I get to sleep in my own bed.

Frankfurt am Main, Germany

There is a small city called Frankfurt in eastern Germany. But when people say “Frankfurt” they are talking about the western city of Frankfurt am Main. It means Frankfurt on the Main (pronounced “Mine”) river.

It’s Germany’s 5th largest city and a major financial center. Sometimes it’s called “Mainhattan” because Frankfurt is home to the European Central Bank, the German Federal Bank, and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, in addition to, +300 national & international banks.

Frankfurt was heavily damaged by allied bombers in WWII. Some things were rebuilt but overall, the city feels modern. Its many skyscrapers make it look like any other American city. Here are some of the weekend’s highlights…

St. Bartholomew’s Cathedral is the city’s main church. The Gothic building was constructed in the 14th and 15th centuries. From 1356 onwards, this is where the kings of the Holy Roman Empire were elected. From 1562 – 1792 this was where the roman-German emperors were crowned.

Paulskirche, St. Paul’s Church, was established as a Protestant church in 1789. In 1848, it was the seat of the first democratically elected Parliament. The church was partially destroyed during the war but was quickly rebuilt. It is no longer used for religious services but it used for exhibitions and city events.

The old opera house was built in 1880. Until the late 1970s, it still had not been rebuilt from the war and was nicknamed “Germany’s Most Beautiful Ruin”. Due to public pressure, the opera house was finally reconstructed and reopened in 1981. The inscription says: "Dem Wahren, Schönen, Guten” – “To the true, the beautiful, the good".

On Saturdays, there is a big flea market along the Main River. Lots of Germans, Poles, Turks and Russians all out selling everything from old records to clothes and from electronics to china. You could also see rowers practicing on the river and a free concert. This weekend was also the Smart Beach Volleyball tournament in the center of town. It was a busy Saturday!

The Römer is a medieval building and one of the city’s most important landmarks. It has been the city hall for over 600 years. In the Römer Square is a memorial to where Nazi students burned books in 1933.

The European Central Bank is responsible for monetary policy over the 16 Eurozone countries. There is even a Euro gift shop. With everything going on in Greece, plus Spain and Portugal, several newspapers had headlines this weekend questioning the Euro and if perhaps Germany needed to go back to using Deutsche marks.

Westendtower was completed in 1993 and is 208 meters (682 feet) tall making it the 3rd highest skyscraper in Frankfurt. The façade is made of fine, golden granite which makes it look whiter and brighter from afar. The building’s steel crown is heated in winter so that icicles can’t form which would endanger pedestrians below.

Maintower was completed in 1999 and at 200 meters (656 feet) is the city’s 4th tallest building. 

This was the first high-rise building in Europe to have a façade made entirely of glass. 

This is the only skyscraper with a public viewing observatory. For 5€ ($7.50), you can ride the speed elevator for 20 seconds and check out the 360° view from up on the roof.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was one of the key figures of German literature and author of the two-part drama Faust. For €5 you can visit the 17th century house where he was born. The museum was closed for renovations but the house was worth seeing.

The Frankfurt Jewish cemetery is the 2nd oldest in Germany. At the start of the 20th century there were ~7000 headstones. In 1942, the Nazis destroyed the cemetery and by the end of the war about 2/3rds of the headstones were destroyed. Only a small portion of the cemetery is still in the original condition. There are 11,134 small blocks placed on the cemetery walls, each one is engraved with the name of a Frankfurt Jew that was killed during the Holocaust. I know that there is a tablet with Anne Frank’s name but I didn’t see it.

Frankfurt even has dinosaurs out on the streets. Cool!

After a full day of sightseeing (and dinosaurs), nothing beats currywurst and ebbelwoi. Currywurst is a pork sausage, cut into slices, and seasoned with curry sauce and curry powder. Ebbelwoi is 5,5% - 7% apple wine with a tart, sour taste. It is refreshing in the summer and served hot in the winter.

The last time I was in Frankfurt was in 1992. The two obvious things I noticed were several new skyscrapers and fewer Americans than before. Frankfurt used to be the headquarters city for the U.S. Army in Germany. In addition, there were 7 air force bases (Hahn, Zweibrücken, Rhein-Main, Bitburg, Sembach, Spangdahlem and Ramstein) all within 100 km (62.5 miles). With the end of the Cold War, 4 of those bases have been closed. I had hoped to maybe find some American products while I was there but no luck. All I was able to find was a 16-piece pack of Oreo cookies. I guess it’s time to start hinting for another care package from home.

Hahn Airport, Germany

Ryanair is an Irish low-cost carrier that typically uses remote airports, as part of its business model, to keep down costs. When I went to Stockholm last year, Ryanair flew in to Skavsta Airport, near Nyköping, about 100 km (62.5 miles) south of the city. When we went to Milan, our plane flew to Bergamo which is about an hour away.

To get to Frankfurt am Main, Ryanair makes use of the Frankfurt-Hahn Airport. Despite its name, the airport is over 120 km (~75 miles) west of Frankfurt.

What's funny is that the last time I was here, I was in the U.S. Air Force and it was called Hahn Air Base. During the Cold War, Hahn was home to the 50th Fighter Wing as part of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE).

In 1993, the base was turned over to the German government and they turned it in to a regional airport. Now the flightline has Boeing 737s instead of F-16 fighters. And who would have thought all of those years ago that a former NATO base would now be used for commercial flights to Prague?

At least for now...Ryanair announced last week that they are going to pull out of Prague this Fall.