I remember that too. For about twenty years every 90 days I alternated between flying to Munich and Hamburg from NY. I remember being in Hamburg shortly after the law took effect, and people were still pretty loose about it. I went out late to dinner one night with some colleagues and after we ate one of my friends asked the other diners (there were only a handful there) if anyone minded if he smoked. All said no, and promptly pulled out their own cigarettes too; the waiters joined in. A year or two later I was visiting Munich and a pipe friend was still able to wangle a private room on the second level of Pusser's bar near Maximillian Strasse. There we were able to eat, drink & smoke pipes to our hearts' content. And for a few years after that I could still enjoy a cigar in the smoking rooms off the lobby of the Vier Jahreszeiten in Munich or the Atlantic Kempinski in Hamburg. Those days are long gone.
