The interview

Apologies for any factual errors contained in this post, but I am writing it three weeks after it occured. I will try to be a little more punctual in future.

So I seemed to suddenly be in Frankfurt. I found my luggage on the conveyor belt, found the train station and got a ticket. Which had strange red ink on it.
"A strange way to validate a ticket," was my initial thought. Until I realised the RMV ticket induced paper cut on my little finger. Nicht cool.
Despite this terrible injury, I found my way to my hotel, but not before more bad omens involving a rickety lift at the Messe U-Bahn station. Needless to say after that, escalators and heavy luggage suddenly seemed to suit each other much better.

The hotel was lovely. I managed to check in in German (once I remembered to tell the receptionist I wanted to check in) and a Swedish lady in the lift told me how to work the swipe card (I knew she was Swedish after hearing her tell her husband when the pizza shop was open, in Swedish. She wasn't wearing a badge or something). The room had a bath (complete with rubber ducky), a selection of faiths to choose from (Christian and Buddhits texts) and digital TV, so I could watch 'Das Perfekte Promi Dinner' (Celebrity Come Dine With Me).

However, I needed to do a recce of the city to find the office, and to get some food. After a successful mission to find the office and a look at the lovely Alte Oper, it was time to find some food. Of course everywhere was shut on a Sunday so I headed to that classiest of shopping and dining destinations, the Hauptbahnhof. I bought soem magazines, including ,InTouch', the classiest of the trashiest, and some fruit and other food from a convenience store. I then feasted on M&S jaffa cakes and orangeade while watching Wallander and avoiding watching Kommissar Beck (have they ever even read the books?!).

On Monday I got up at half six and headed into town. I found the office, had coffee with the boss and saw the flat. After leaving the flat, I realised I had left my iPod there (we were to be reunited three weeks later). I headed into town and wandered down the Zeil, getting lunch on the roof terrace of Galeria Kaufhof. Definitely the life! I also spent far too much time looking at beautifully-designed kitchenwares, trying to find Romy Schneider films with English subtitles and considering which crime novel to buy from the bookshop.

Frankfurt airport was slightly confusing, but the ticker board of destinations almost made up for that. I flew back to Manchester, seated between two German businessmen and braved the soupy smells to get a hot chocolate in the arrivals coffee shop before heading home on the train. I was interrupted from .Mord im Orientexpress' and my Haribos by the boarding of Laura at Doncaster, all in all a pleasant trip. Apart from creating one more Haribo Balla-balla addict.