vailian

As I write I am sitting in the express train from Frankfurt to Amsterdam, via Cologne, where I will get off. Have just spent a most frustrating morning getting a ery simple thing done: new pages in my passport.
My passport is very full, with visas and stamps from some very odd places. Now we are going to travel to China in December, and to get my work visa for that I need to have a complete passport page empty.
The information on the web page for the American Embassy indicates that the procedure is simple and does not require a previous appointment, no extra documentation, and can be done while you wait. So far so good.
But it does mean a special trip to Frankfurt, about 200 km from my house, and the office is only open weekdays from 7:30 to 11:30a.m. Groan.
So I dragged myself out of bed at 5 this morning, only to discover I was out of tea bags. Now I don’t function well in the early morning and without my morning tea (a habit I picked up in England) I cannot see straight.
Stumbled down the stairs (and there are a lot of them) and onto my bicycle, weaved my way through the dark and deserted streets to the train station.

Although some people complain about the train service here, I personally have rarely had anything but good experiences. The trains are frequent and stations are clean and orderly (and are now smoke-free, yay!), and the ticketing is straightforward (I especially like being able to print my own ticket from the internet). If you have a discount card, the journeys are reasonably priced (compare them with the prices in England or Switzerland... and much faster and more comfortable than driving). The ICE trains are white and sleek and quiet as an elevator, have power outlets for my laptop at every seat, and get you the 200 km in an hour.
The sun just coming up as we went over the river into Frankfurt. They have a nickname for the city: Mainhattan, because it is on the River Main and the skyline, with a bit of imagination, reminds you of New York. A city of bankers and sleek people, businesslike and a bit distant. The architecture tends to the massive and stony and the cars more Mercedes and BMW than VW. Frankfurt used to have a generous helping of American cars („Ami-Schlitten“) but not so much any more as the people indentify more with Europe these days.
I had never been to the Embassy in Frankfurt, so to be on the safe side I got in a taxi.
„Please take me to the American Embassy“, I said to the driver. He gave me a long look before saying, „OK“. The nameplate on the dashboard was Muhammed. I didn’t have the nerve to ask him where he was from; judging from his name and looks and accent he was probably from Pakistan. (I generally like chatting with taxi drivers. The last taxi I took was driven by a distinguished older man, who asked me what concert I was going to, told me that his daughter played the violin...I asked him where he was from, he said, Iran. I said, what was your job there? And he said, with a mixture of pride and shame, „I was a nuclear physicist“.




The embassy (strictly speaking it is not an embassy— that is in Berlin— but a consulate) is across the street from Frankfurt's main cemetery. It is not purpose built, but is an old military hospital, I suspect built during the Nazi era, and looks and feels like a prison. High steel walls and a very visible police presence.
Muhammed stopped the taxi in front of the entrance ("We are not allowed to drive into the parking lot any more," he explained) but was immediately accosted by a security officer (not even police or embassy staff— these things are all outsourced these days, probably he is employed by Blackwater) who was surly and told him to stop down the street (he called the driver "Boy" which under these circumstances is just as insulting as it would be in English).
There was a long line of people waiting patiently. They were all overly neatly dressed, the men in suits and ties, the children spotless. Quite unlike the normal rather practical clothes you would normally see. The line inched forward, each applicant having to show his papers at the gatekeeper's window. The man in the office was behind heavy safety glass and spoke via a loud intercom, so it was easy to work out what each person was here for. They had to take out their papers and press them to the glass, and then if they were deemed worthy, they would get a precious entry slip into the compound proper. I noticed that very few were carrying laptops (normally required apparel for this very businesslike crowd). Only the man ahead of me was. As he got to the window, the gatekeeper shouted at him, "you know you can't take that in with you!"
"Are there lockers here?", the man asked. "What should I do with it?"
"We don't have any facilities here! You can take it to the little shop at the intersection and maybe they will hold it for you, THEN come back here!"
I was next in line, and had the same problem. I had been waiting in line for 20 minutes.
What could I do? I asked.
Take it to the shop! he said. But at least he did give me an entry slip for the embassy.
The shop turned out to be a tiny kiosk about a half mile away, a shack on a busy multilane street. A very unlikely place for people to leave valuable computers. The nationality of the owner was not easy to discern, I am guessing Indian or Kurdish. He has gleefully seen this as a business op, and charges $8 to balance my precious laptop on the piles of foreign newspapers, candy, dusty tinned goods, and cigarettes, plus any number of laptops and carryons.
I sprinted back, and skirted around the line of people waiting at the gate, brandishing my entry ticket.
Then joined the queue of people waiting to be searched. We were only let into the building 2 at a time, otherwise waiting outside with no protection from the elements (fortunately it was nice weather). otherwise, the procedure was similar to the one we know in airports. The girl told me, "No electronic devices!" and I said, "I left my laptop at the kiosk" and she said, "You have a cell phone?"
My heart sank, as indeed, a cell phone was nestled in some back pocket. I loaded it into the tray... hoping they would allow cell phones. She said, OK, as a special favor we will hold it for you and you will get it back when you come out.
IF I come out, I thought to myself.
"And, take off your belt," she said.
"Will I get that back too?," I asked.
She smiled at that. "We don't want your pants falling down!"
It was comforting to get the flash of humor.
We were led across a courtyard, and through two more steel-reinforced doors.
The complex is enormous, and the place looks and feels like the hospital it was until recently. It still smells of disinfectant and medical machinery. Not the friendly place an American embassy ought to be. You can feel the tension and suspicion at every turn, probably justified in some cases, but there is an overbearing sense of paranoia that leads to exaggeration of the security setup.
I joined the people patiently waiting to be called. As an American citizen I was allowed to go to the second floor. From there I could look down on the huddled masses of foreigners waiting their turn... most of them simply want visas for visiting relatives, but (as I worked out while waiting in the first line) for many of them the process involves endless paperwork and up to three separate interviews— each one including a trip to Frankfurt and the senseless waiting and body searches.
As it happens, the thing I came for— the new passport pages— is simple and straightforward: they take your passport, you fill out a simple form, and they put it through a machine that sews in a few new leaves. The work involved takes a minute or two, and is free.
The woman handling my passport was middle-aged, German, and quite efficient. I took the opportunity to ask her about getting an American passport for my daughter, now 9, but it is complicated: she was born in South Africa but has been growing up in Barcelona, her mother was born in Egypt but has German citizenship, her father was born in Michigan but has lived most of his adult life in England and Germany.
The woman at the embassy said, yes, that is very complicated. "Your daughter has a right to American citizenship, but I am not sure how or where you can apply for it. It may well be that all three of you have to fly to South Africa."
This is NOT what I wanted to hear.