Beyond Borders: Tales of European Travel

It was April 18th, 2013. I’d travelled from my exchange city in the Netherlands to Frankfurt with a group of friends in order to celebrate three of their birthdays. One fun-filled party weekend where I was the only non-German. I really enjoyed being a Canadian in Europe though. The friendliness that has always been a part of my culture lent itself well to meeting people. I’d learned through previous trips with my friends that Germans and Canadians did things differently. The main things were eye contact and smiling. In Canada, it’s completely normal to make eye contact with a stranger on the street and smile at them. You might even strike up a conversation! In Germany, when I made eye contact with and smiled at German gentlemen, they seemed to assume I was trying to flirt with them. I tried to control this smiling reflex, with little success. Anyway, back to the night of April 18th. My friends and I had consumed a few pre-party drinks at United-Hostel in the Frankfurt city centre. We had booked two dormitory rooms to accommodate all of the party guests for the weekend. At about 11pm we headed for the Metro. We arrived, boarded the train for downtown, and waited for the train to leave. As I sat by the window, I started people watching. My eyes were drawn to a German man, about my age, on the metro platform. He was holding a guitar case and chatting. My eyes skimmed across the rest of the platform, but I suddenly had the feeling that someone was watching me. I looked back to see guitar-boy was looking at me. We made eye contact, and I smiled as I would in any social situation. He saw it differently. He chuckled and handed his guitar case to his friends. He walked over to my window, smiled at me, and put his hand against the glass. He kept his eyes on mine the entire time. The doors closed and I managed to control my laughter, but he still had his hand on the glass, and he was still smiling at me. The train lurched and then started, and the guitar-boy jogged along with it. He made it, with his hand on my window, smiling at me, until the end of the platform. My friends and I headed to O’Dwyers Irish Pub. It’s located in an area that’s arguably the centre of Frankfurt’s nightlife. We had a few “Snakebites” (a mixture of beer and cider) and eventually headed back to the hostel. I never saw guitar-boy again, but April 18th is a day that will always live in my heart. And Frankfurt is a place I absolutely plan to go back to.