Teen to Teen: Welcome to Frankfurt

Welcome to Frankfurt, Germany-an Overview of this Post
By Eric Wanner, grade 12 and Karl Wanner, grade 9

If moving to Frankfurt, Germany is in your future, you have a lot of things to look forward to, but good weather is not one of them. The weather here is mild, gray and rainy most of the time and your apartment might be small compared to what you're used to. Now that the negative stuff is out of the way, let's talk about the positive aspects of Frankfurt.

Frankfurt am Main, a medium sized city with one third of the population being foreigners (this means you can get by on English here), is also called "Bankfurt" because it is an international banking capital. The public transportation is fast, regular and cheap and teens can get all around this relatively safe city on their own.

There are indoor/outdoor heated pools here, one of them with a lighted water slide, saunas, Jacuzzis, and a snackbar. An English language cinema is near the Consulate housing area. The housing area is called "The Siedlung". There is a huge indoor/outdoor ice skating rink, bowling, a rock climbing wall, and a mall. Downtown there are museums of every kind, discos, cafes, and an IMAX. Frankfurt has a huge Convention Center (the Messe) which holds international shows from autos to books. If you like rock concerts, you will find that here too. You can also attend sport events-hockey, basketball, and soccer.

Of course all of this takes money, which is one of Frankfurt's drawbacks-it's expensive compared to the developing countries you may have lived in. You can find babysitting and pet sitting jobs at the Siedlung and the Consulate has a Summer Hire Program for teens 16 and older.

The Siedlung, or housing area, is a group of apartment buildings.(Not everyone is assigned Siedlung housing) The kitchens have 110 and 220 power outlets, but the bedrooms are only 220. The Siedlung is close to downtown Frankfurt and there is good public transportation very near. The CLO office has a book exchange library and a computer for the public to use. We have tennis courts, a volley ball court, weight room, video/dvd rental, and the Fieldhouse which serves dinners and burgers/fries.

Most teens like the schools here. There is the DOD school, International School of Frankfurt (which is a more German-style school), and Frankfurt International School (FIS). Buses take kids from the Siedlung to these three schools. Our experience with FIS has been very good-this school has lots of extra curricular activities, good programs, great facilities, internet access, and a friendly, international student body. Other extracurricular activities include Civil Air Patrol, Girl Scouts, and Boy Scouts.

One advantage of Frankfurt is the nearby U.S. military installations. You can shop at the commissary and BX or PX and get every kind of American food/junk food you'd like. The bases have food courts (Burger King, Taco Bell, Robin Hood, Baskin Robbins, Popeye's etc.), and Power Zones where you can get the latest DVDs, CDs, and electronic equipment for good prices, but you'll have to count on getting your clothes somewhere else, like online.

You'll find uninterrupted water and power service in Germany, which might be a treat compared to where you lived before. You can drink the tap water. Internet service is good and you can get DSL so you can easily keep in touch with your old friends. Lots of kids here have cell phones.

The U.S. Consulate Frankfurt has a Teen Program, which means they budget some money for teen activities. We get together every so often and do something as a group, for example we have had Scary Movie Night, Ice Skating, Halloween Disco, and a Build Your Own Sundae Party. There are also plenty of volunteer opportunities. Maybe you would like to be the next Teen Community Liaison Officer, contribute articles or pictures to this website, or even be the Teen Foreign Correspondent for Frankfurt.

If you get here and are totally bummed out about leaving your old community, Frankfurt has the advantage of being an international airline hub. You can easily find sort of cheap airfares to almost anywhere-some teens visit their old friends, or have them come here. If you're the adventuresome type you can also get special train tickets for a day to a month or two, and go exploring Europe.

For the more adventurous type, you're in Europe so explore.  Since Europe is so small you can get anywhere in Western Europe in about a day, excluding England.  There is plenty to do and plenty to see, and depending on how long you stay here you might get to see more than others.  And for some this is the only time you will be here so make the most of it.