My first overseas trip was to Europe. You must understand this little thing about India, it’s not very kind to young girls who want to travel independently and that want also to volunteer. I suppose I would be anxious as well if I were sending my daughter to some foreign country where I have no control over their safety. “Volunteer? Alone? NO WAY!”
Luckily, I was brought up in a multi-cultural background where we grew up with people from different backgrounds shuffling in and out of our home and my parents had been in Europe so many times that it was like sending me to my grammie’s house. And so after several days of lectures on how not to look like a tourist so I’m not scammed, how to pack minimally (my dad’s a bit of a travel guru having spent his whole life travelling from place to place. He had pegged packing down to an art!) and how to brace myself for culture shock, I took off for my grand adventure.
Landing in the Frankfurt Airport was like landing on Mars. Compared to the airport we had then in Bangalore, which was more like 3 large rooms attached to a couple of long runways, walking inside the Frankfurt Airport was literally like walking into a spaceship. There were hardly any people and having just a few hours earlier come from a city of 8 million people, the silence and the lack of people was eerie.
And EVERYTHING was automated and in German. Is this what culture shock was to feel like? Your jaws on the floor, walking around in a trance like zombie state? The immigration guy (with a full uniform and stern look) had a space-age looking logo that said “Fraport” (which I initially thought was his name). He took my passport, looked at me, stamped it and slid it across to me without so much as a smile or eye contact. I had to resist an urge to stand in attention and salute. Looked like the right thing to do. No? Apparently not.
After walking for hours and passing by a McLaren F1 Road Car display a million times (this one may have been on purpose), I finally found the exit where I was supposed to meet a friend and that was the end of my culture shock. If you’ve ever been outside Fraport, you’d know what I mean. It’s crowded and noisy and everyone is doing what I used to call the binge smoke and tag dance. Every 2 meters there was a smoking bin surrounded by at least a dozen business persons. These had a great view of giant corporate buildings from which they had probably just exited. There were a couple of people who were drinking tea down the road from us, somewhere a radio was playing and two people were sweeping the footpath. Two Japanese people were taking a photo of themselves in front of a Heineken ad and just across the road from me, a man had just put his hand out to moving traffic, run across the road and with a little wink to me, disappeared into the airport.
A huge smile appeared on my face – This is where cultural differences disappear. Somethings are just universal and me? I was home!
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I can imagine it was a real shock!
It really was. At first!
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Nicely written! 🙂
Thank you SO much! 🙂
Amazing! 😀
Lovely post! It’s always so interesting to hear the different travel-shocks everyone goes through. I imagine I’d probably have culture shock going to India! I haven’t made it there yet, but one day hopefully!
It is interesting. What is normal to you would probably knock me off my feet. India will be a bit of a shock for sure. There’s so much going on – but definitely worth exploring! Hopefully you’ll get to visit soon!
“You must understand this little thing about India” this interest me! Thank’s for visiting cupitonians, see U soon when I back to read more! Greetings from me 🙂
I’ll write about more little things about India soon. I’m sure you’ll like it. Thank you so much!
Please do, I’ll be eager to read 🙂
Fraport is like a maze. You can spend hours walking around in it, never getting where you want to go. It’s huge and everything looks the same. Düsseldorf Airport is worse, maybe just because when I was a kid there was a huge fire with many victims and I never felt save there afterwards ever again so I prefer Frankfurt.
Honestly though, the immigration people in Canada were worse. They asked me all kinds of questions, where I was staying, why I was there, for how long, for what purpose. But in general, the passport people in Frankfurt are not that nice, you are right. Though nothing is worse than Arab countries. I hated Dubai. The guy who was taking such a freaking long time to punch his stamp into my passport while looking me up and down and up again. Sorry to say but I didn’t feel save there at all and I wasn’t even officially inside the country yet. You could just see his despise of an unmarried woman on his face – the worst!
Great piece though. Will there be more to this story?
Fraport really is a maze – I enjoyed getting lost in there. It was like walking through a nightmare (minus the monsters) with everything cold and grey. And you know me, anything remotely dangerous and I have to poke it with a stick. I didn’t have that sort of problems in any other airport except my own. They’re always suspicious as to why an Indian girl would travel alone to some of the ‘weird’ places I’ve been to. I haven’t faced that problem in Dubai though. Probably cause I’ve always worn my Indian clothes (clever move on my part so that in the worst case scenario, I can pull the culture card out). And yes, the next time I write here, there will be more! 🙂 Thank you so much Wil! 🙂
Ah, see, I am just unmistakeably European and an unmarried woman alone and that just doesn’t go well with Dubai I guess. Very clever to pull the culture card there, hehe.
My travel companion was questioned while we were leaving Frankfurt for Canada which I thought was odd because why do they care about a 20something woman leaving the country.
Nice, I’m looking forward to it!
So, you think deep down inside there’s very little difference among us humans? Other than our tastes for architecture? Brave girl – let’s hear more!
Hey, thanks Mel. I think there are differences but our foundations are the same – we all have the same passions, are moved by the same things and our blood flows the same red don’t you find? 🙂
Wonderful story, I hope you’re going to tell us what happened next.
Thank you SO much. I was going to say something corny about tune in next week but I reconsidered. I’ll definitely continue the story next time! 🙂