We made it as easy as possible for ourselves. The trip would be ending. We would be torn between leaving Europe and seeing our furkids again. We (Ok, I) would be unfocused melodramatic queens.
All we had do after arriving at the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (Frankfurt train station) from Paris was to catch a second local train to the Flughafen Frankfurt (Frankfurt airport). A quick 12-minute or so ride. The front desk had confirmed that a transport would be waiting outside of the terminal to pick us up and take us to the nearby airport hotel. Straightforward enough.
An hour had passed and still no shuttle. We phoned the front desk; they apologized and would send another vehicle. A second hour passed; a second phone call made. We were at the wrong terminal. Easily remedied.
Now to get to the other terminal; Frankfurt Airport only had two terminals. Should have been a piece of cake had someone responded to our random request for help or directed the two bedraggled Americans in the right direction. The Germans were living up to their frosty stereotype.
So back to square one. Bite the bullet and take a cab? There was already a line waiting outside the airport to ferry visitors to all corners of the city. Standard operating procedure, apparent from the cabbies’ pointed fingers, was to take the first taxi in the queue.
The driver was of some unfamiliar ethnicity. Middle Eastern? North African maybe? The determination was made more difficult when he started cussing in his native language. The raised voice, the glaring in the rear-view mirror, the circuitous route to inflate the fair–tell-tale signs that he was royally pissed off.
We found out that later from the hotel staff the cause of the cabbie’s animosity. Taxi drivers usually wait for hours in line at the airport or train stations hoping to score a long distance (profitable) passenger. A three minute (five Euro max) drive to a nearby airport hotel was hardly worth the effort. It was essentially a game of passenger roulette. We felt terrible that we had not been aware of this beforehand. Thankfully, we’d know better for next time!
