Frankfurt

Müller just wants some peace and quiet. He exits terminal one quickly with his family, heading home to enjoy what’s left of the weekend. It was a hard few weeks’ work for our man in Beirut.

Rana Najjar stays with us. Müller-Bialon brought her along with him on the return flight; the 28-year old Lebanese journalist will now report for four weeks from Frankfurt from her desk at the editorial office of the Frankfurter Rundschau.

She’ll have lots to report on, beginning with the forests bare of leaves that pass by the suburban train windows between the airport and downtown. That morning in Beirut it was twenty degrees, says Najjar. The intern from the Goethe-Institut, who also came to pick up our charge, grins. We can’t offer anything like that here.

Najjar has plenty planned. This week already, she has to deliver a long story to Al-Hayat for a weekly two-page feature in the paper on families and the elderly. “In Lebanon there are no old age benefits like there are in Germany, we have no nursing homes and nursing services. The people work for a very long time and when they are no longer able, the family takes over and they stay at home,” she explains while the train drops into the Frankfurt underground. She wants to investigate that and otherwise she wants to visits lot and lots of museums, go to concerts, explore the city – and write about it, of course.

In Beirut, says Najjar, the people know about Germany, naturally, but not nearly as much as they do about France, Spain or America. “It’s always the same, everyone’s familiar with Braun and Mercedes, but that’s about it.” She cannot exclude herself from the group, but she has read Faust at least.

This Monday, Najjar will begin her work at the FR, as will Müller-Bialon again. His co-workers will want to hear all about his experiences. But, only in English, for over the coming four weeks that will be the language spoken at the city desk.