Life in Frankfurt

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jht...0/ixportal.html

Reference to the fact that no one accepts credit cards in this backward stupid little town. No mention of how rude everyone is nor about the general ignorance of service. i.e. shopkeepers who think that they are there only for their own benefit and the customer is a rude intrusion into their sad little lives.

Rudeness is a continental thing, not just a Frankfurt thing. Ignorance of service is a German thing, not just a Frankfurt thing... Me reckons you simply having a hard time adjusting to Frankfurt. You should try not knock everything here because Frankfurt will only ever be as good as you make it to be.
Yeah, it has its bad points... but honestly, where in the world is everything sooooo perfect?

Melbourne

Well then there's your answer, Go to Melbourne. Nobody is forcing you to stay here. I am so tired of people who moan constantly about being here. You have the power to change your life so that you are not so sodding miserable. If it stinks so badly here then leave.There are things about every place i've ever lived, (including here) that irritate the Hell out of me but if I let it bother me as much as life in Germany bothers you i'd be on Prozac permanently.

Get over yourself or buy a ticket to Australia and save us all from your whining.

Who's wining? I am merely stating the facts with a few adjectives thrown in for poetic effect. I like it here.

Well it doesn't sound like it. I don't understand why Frankfurt doesn't accept Credit cards when almost 80% of stores I frequent in Stuttgart do,
including supermarkets.
My whinge is that Ikea doesn't but that's probably a good thing and prevents me from having a house full of useless soft furnishings and trinkets!!!

I just love Frankfurt! So the shopkeepers are rude and you don't have the luxury of paying with plastic, get on with it ... life's too short, so stop complaining!! Geez, some people!!

I agree - we shouldn't be like the Germans...always complaining, but hell-what about a bit of customer service? I once had a friendly assistant, but immediately realised the big boss must have walked in-and that was the case.

Alright alright, I will. But don't you think that Frankfurt is ugly? I mean in a nice way, like how the run-down parts of Brooklyn can have a beauty about them. The people look weather-beaten and down, like they all come from some Siberian Kulag

Frankfurt is ugly, in some areas.
So is Melbourne.

I must admit I was rather disappointed with Melbourne when I visited the city last November. Most Australians who did not live there either say it is either a horrible place, or "you have to let Melbourne grow on you". Frankfurt is much the same, do you not think? I put my disappointment down to the cold weather we experienced there (13° in the summer) and the fact that the place seemed to be one great big building site which I reckon was simple preparation work for the commonwealth games this year.

One thing you have to say for the Australians though... they have no problems with credit cards, as long as they can easily get their hands on your hard earned dosh they dont really care

If you want rude shopkeepers go to Berlin! In comparision with Berlin, in Frankfurt they practically bend over backwards!

As for credit cards, that has its advantage, at least it means its harder to get into debt. And you can pay with plastic - many places accept EC direct debit cards!

Other than a couple of nice areas, I think Frankfurt is one of the ugliest cities in Germany...

Just my opinion...especially after living in Munich for a while...

PS. Nothing wrong with voicing your opinion, or discontent with Frankfurt or Germany - afterall thats what this board is for or?

Bet you love that Bavarian Weißwurst too... :doh:

No, I think Frankfurt is beautiful ... esp. along the Main. What do you think is ugly about the city, where are the run-down areas (that you compare to Brooklyn)?

Umm, it is Feb., aren't we suppose to look all weather-beaten. Post your pic ... just so we know what non-weather beaters look like.

I didn't mean YOU look weather-beaten. And in no way am I making any judgements about anyone. I haven't got a photo but I can assure you I look pretty rough most of the time, even in summer.
Frankfurt generally looks pretty dishevelled IMHO. I know the skyscrapers look pretty at night and part of the river are OK. But generally it looks a little down-at-heel, tattered and seedy.
Ok now I know what you're going to say. Go somewhere else. And I am. Next Friday will be my last week in Frankfurt and I have to return to London, which is much less pretty in many parts but gloruiously beautiful in others. But is a whole lot bigger than frankfurt.
Melbourne, by the way, does not look at its best in winter but with a winter of 13 degress aint bad. And it has some very impressively ugly areas as well. But view the city from the coast, down towards Brighton or St. Kilda and it is beautiful.

Well I cant comment on Melbourne, having never been there, but I dont find Frankfurt all that bad. Compared to some cities in Belgium, eg Liege, Antwerp and Brussels its pretty smart. Also germans whove lived here for 10, 20 years or more tell me Frankfurt is now much smarter and better than it was back then. Most if not all of the bomb sites have been built on. In Antwerp you still see loads of bombsites, (where V1 and V2 rockets landed at the end of the war) some of them just filled in with a bodged ugly 1 or two storey 50s style building.

There are also many areas of Frankfurt which are very attractive, eg Bergen in Bergen-Enkheim ie up the hill, not the area below, parts of Ginnheim and up that way, parts of Nordend, Bornheim and of course Sachsenhausen, just to mention a few.

Dont forget this city, like most others in Germany was bombed to bits in WW2. So places like Melbourne dont have any excuse! The worst part of all I find are the absolutely hideous 50s/60s and in many cases also 70s buildings that were thrown up. Poignant example, those gruesome shoeboxes on the Römer Square. They should be torn down and replaced with something decent. Absolute eyesore!

eh, Whizz, Upsidedown Land. Our winter is their summer. Therefore, 13° in their summer (albeit at the beginning of their summer) is pretty shite. Even by Irish summer standards

Were you there in November or later? It doesn't sart to warm up until December or so. But 13 degrees does sond a bit cool even for November. Ii was there for what locals described as a crappy summer, close to the worst in living memory. But it was often 34 degrees and seemed pretty nice to me.

Late November. Muppet me & Mrs. Maisflocke only had a jumper to keep us warm. It was so cold we decided not to go on the Phillip Island penguin thingy. It was weird, because we experienced 25° in Sydney, and 28° in Adelaide (which was just right) ... but 13° in Melbourne at the beginning of summer... brrrrrrrrrr! The heat in Alice Springs & Cairns made up for the coldness of Melbourne. Alice was a shithole though.


Oi you! I dont put your area of residence down do I ??!!??

Enkheim, although not as pretty as Bergen, is an awful lot nicer than a lot of Frankfurt areas

I quite liked Alice Springs, loved Adelaide and it´s surroundings. Sitting here in Bayern watching the snow coming down and freezing my ass off I would choose Melbourne at 13° over any German City.

To be honest, a lot of people I talk to also think Frankfurt is ugly. Having been here for nearly 2.5 years I can see their point. However, parts of the city are lovely i.e Half of the Römer and the River Main in the summer. Before anyone says anything, I am quite content here in Frankfurt.

Frankfurt is great.
Some of the most beautiful parts of any city I've ever been to are in Frankfurt. London is a fucking shithole in comparison to Frankfurt. A shithole!
Crappy customer service? Yeah, sometimes, ...most of the time though I think it's pretty in ordnung...and I've had plenty of good service in Restuarants/cafes etc...from usually very pretty ladies...oh yes.
nah, Frankfurt for me out weighs ANY british city by a long shot.

For me the standard of life is better in Frankfurt than most cities in the UK. I think it's the freedom to do whatever that I enjoy the most.

According to Mercer HR Consulting, the quality of living in Frankfurt is better than ALL cities in the UK... but not as high as Zurich.

That said, despite not being able to pay by credit card (whats's wrong with an EC card?), I haven't found people to be that rude at all. Unless of course you walk up to them and in a loud and patronising voice bawl "Do you speak English?" in which case they are quite within their rights to be rude to you.

In fact, I like Frankfurt so much I think I'll jump in my car at 4pm and drive the 422kms from Zurich to visit the Ford of the Franks for the weekend !!!

What´s wrong with an EC card?
If you use an EC card money is immediately taken from your account, if you use a credit card you have one month(with a German one ) of more (with English ones) to pay.

I get a lot of visitors from the USA and Australia, they always want to take us out for a meal, go shopping and expect Germany to be like the rest of the world and take credit cards for goods and in restaurants,
unfortunately this country is many years behind in this area. Yes I know that the Germans say if you can´t pay for it don´t buy it but most shops offer goods to be paid for over a couple of years and somebody must be taking advantage of this. I have travelled to many countries including some very poor ones and I have used my credit card everywhere but on return Germany it´s often a problem.

The reason is that the shopkeepers are too tight to pay the clearing fees.

Get a Barclaycard it works like a UK credit card and you also get an EC card that works that way too.

I live in Berlin and I totally agree with you, I've heard from all sorts of people, including Germans, that the worst city in Germany is Berlin and I believe it.
People in general look quite scruffy and bitter, they are extremely rude, always snapping for no reason, shoving, pushing...
As for the city, well, everywhere you look there's construction work going on, graffiti, beggars...
Customer service is non existant as shop keepers/assistants are always grumpy and insulted if you want to buy something from them, they don't take credit cards anywhere either, just cash or EC... Ufff...
(though I did get the Barclaycard and it is very helpful!)

My husband constantly travels to Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich... and he tells me they are very smart cities and much more international than Berlin.
Berlin's internationality comes down to Kreuzberg's gigantic Turkish Community whereas cities like Hamburg or Frankfurt have more foreign 'professionals' or 'bussiness men'.
Anyway that's just what I've heard from different people, I've only been in Berlin and my husband thinks that is the reason why I don't enjoy living in Germany!

When we came on our honeymoon 20 some odd years ago we did like most people brought some cash and planned to do the rest on CC. Opps! big mistake, after running out of cash we walked around for several hours till we found a place that would accept CC so we could eat. The next day we managed to get a cash advance off our Visa Card from the local bank.

Even today when I ask about why they don`t accept CC they all give the same excuse, oh we have to pay 3% not realizing that people spend extra when buying with Credit. What I and alot of others that move here find really weird is that fact you have massive (good 200.000 sft some of them) furniture stores and little tiny grocery stores. I mean how often do you buy that dream couch compared to food shopping. Even wierder is they don`t sell electronics at this furniture stores.

A lot of the german retail scene is pretty weird. These strange supermarkets where your goods are shoved straight back into the supermarket trolley. No one to help you bag up. I know an asian supermarket here where they bag up your goods for you as they are being checked out. What a contrast in the german service wüste!

It sounds like Berlin hasnt changed much since I moved away from the city some 7 years ago! I had 7 years of Berlin, including eastern Berlin, and thats enough to last a lifetime. All the things youve said could practically have come out of my mouth too! At the time coming straight from London and being niave "this is Germany, this is where its at", I thought Berlin *was* Germany. It was only when I had the chance to live in other places in Germany I realised a lot of what I thought was Germany was merely just Berlin.

Its a peculiar place, and it was even more so back in the 90s when West Berlin emerged from its sleeplike existence within the wall, and the eastern part was opened up. I kind of revelled in the peculiarness of it at the time, but it got me down at the finish and so I was more than happy to move away when the chance came. Now when I go back Im interested in how its developing, but Im always relieved to get back to western Germany. I dont think I could move back there in a hurry though (not that theres any reason to jobwise and with the state the Berlin economy is (still) in). I would just not be prepared to accept the rudery and the way people behave there any more. Ive seen and experienced better!

To find the nice areas around Frankfurt you have to outside of the city, where I live Langen is really beautiful, I'm 5 mins from the woods, wonderfull for running. Tanus is also nice. Personally I think Munich and Bavaria are one of the nicest areas in Germany but the weather really sucks cold wet damp winters and more rain than London. I think the gods punish anyone who lives there with bad weather and horrible traffic on the weekends. But its more than made up by the beautiful mountians.

The discussion is about living in Frankfurt, right? Not about Frankfurt's countryside.

Of course, we all have different a perspective of what "nice" implies. To me "nice" is not merely environment/nature (one's view of the mountains, lake, and trees, per se), it's how the city looks/feels; it's the architecture, the mix of the new with the old, the variety of colours and contrasts ... the infrastructure, the diversity of people (rich/poor, black/white, young/old) and the feeling you get when you walk down the street, with the sun radiating on your face, the richness in the air, the sounds of birds chirping, people talking, and autos purring. That is city life!!!

Sorry, but I think most people who complain about crusty "city" life, are stuck in a big-city without choice, whether it be for work, or their partner's work ... really, most are content with a slower pace, living in the country-side, or rural townships. Nothing's wrong with that, I'm a farm-girl through & through ... but it's hard to compare apples with oranges.


All in all, life is what you make out of it. If you expect a cashier to smile (and praise your good work for arranging your groceries to perfection), turn the tables, and smile yourself!!

we actually live about 15 mins outside of Frankfurt which I think is perfect, close enough for the convenience far enough away to avoid the hassles of city living.

I could not agree more!

I personally love Frankfurt when the sun is shining but it might not be everyones cup of tea.

The credit card thing does not bother me one little bit I hardly ever use mine anyway. I cannot really understand why people would want to pay for a meal in arestaurant with a credit card what is wrong with good old cash? The only time the credit card thing irritated me was in Saturn when I was paying over 1000€ for a washing machine and tumble dryer. I had to pay EC but the problem was at the time there was a limit on my EC card of 1000€ a week! It was an interesting purchase!


I feel exactly the same. And it is odd the Germans friends I still have in Bremen who I met when I first came to Germany still laugh at some of the mistakes I used to make. I always used to get Gesicht and Geschirr mixed up and they still find that funny to this day :doh: