The day started out on bad note. I kind of had to push my wife out the door in the morning, as my train was leaving at 1 p.m. from Frankfurt Central Station and I had to make sure to leave home by noon the latest. It simply is easier, both practically and emotionally, to not have anybody around when I get ready, especially when things may get tight, and I run the risk of getting nervous. Everything is geared towards one goal on departure day: to sit on the ICE high-speed train on time, to be fully made up and properly dressed, and to have packed everything I need for my days en femme without fail.
“I hate being forced to go to work in the middle of the night” she said when she stepped through the door of our apartment at 8:15 a.m.
Portraits of the day
What makes elevator shots so interesting? I guess they symbolize a moment of transition. The elevator brings you from private space to public space. Stepping inside the elevator, pressing the ground floor button, the door closing – your fate is not in your hands anymore. There is no turning around. And it can happen as quickly as another person entering the elevator one floor down or a family waiting at the ground floor to enter the elevator. But the latest at that moment you leave the elevator, you are exposed to the public, you step from preparation to performance.
At “our” bus stop.
Heidi! I am sure some of you know Heidi Klum, Germany’s top model. She is the host to the TV casting show “Germany’s next top model,” which runs since 2006 and of which I have never seen a single episode. Anyway, as she so prominently advertised for hose at Frankfurt Central Station, I could not pass up the opportunity to have someone take a photo of Franzi “with her.”
12:58, departure of ICE 578 from Frankfurt to Hamburg (Hauptbahnhof = Hbf)
If you book ICE train tickets long enough ahead of time, you can get good prices even on first class tickets. Those have a number of advantages: there is more space (one single-seat row and one double-seat row), occasional service at the seat (and with occasional I mean to say, on some trips yes, on others no), and the folks you share the wagon with tend to be easier to tolerate.
As usual – for some more privacy – I had booked a seat in the single-seat row, which typically faces the back of the next seat. This time, however, I had accidentally reserved a single seat at a table (like the one on the left in the picture from Deutsche Bahn below), facing the person sitting on the other side of the table, as well as two persons of the group of four across the aisle. And of course, it happened as it had to that all seats were occupied. Well, there was little I could do, other than to trust my skills in female presentation. And I did not observe any stares or whispering during the three-and-a-half-hour ride. Or maybe my fellow countryfolks are simply cooler than I think. Yeah, right!
And this is how I tend to spend part of my time on the train: Doing femme things.
Hamburg Central Station: These machines will hopefully be a piece from the past soon. Still today, every local public transport association in Germany has a different system of ticketing and tariffs. It is an absolute nuisance to buy a local ticket at one of these damn machines, even for an engineer fluent in German.
For a few years now, we have what is called the “Germany Ticket,” which comes at an affordable monthly price, and which allows you to take all Deutsche Bahn trains in Germany – except for the ICE high-speed trains – and all local trains, subways, trams, and busses of all local public transport associations. That is cool, I have to say, and many people even get these tickets from their employers. I am one of the few without a “Germany Ticket,” though (as I ride a car to work), and had to buy my subway ticket from Hamburger Verkehrsverbund at one of these damn machines.
“Cougar Juice!” Did I tell you yet that it was only last year that I learned what “Cougar Juice” is? We vacationed in France and visited several vineyards. During one of the visits, we met two ladies from California, who travelled to France together (without their families) to celebrate their 25-year anniversary of having met and become friends at college. They told us that Chardonnay (in the US) is referred to as “Cougar Juice” because of its proverbial popularity with women that are viewed as cougars. Ever since, I tend to enjoy a class of Chardonnay even more than before, such as my welcome drink at the hotel in Hamburg here in this picture. And I can only suspect what the lady to my left was drinking.
And here is outfit number one, that wonderful, pleated dress that you have seen on other weekend trips before, with matching brown ankle boots.
And then it was time to change to outfit number two for “dinner and drinks.”
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