Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Planes

Airports provide one of the best places to sit and go people watching because, well, people in airports are actually interesting. Unfortunately this trip was not fruitful in people watching entertainment… with the exception of the 10 minutes spent with about 7 20 something Irish guys. The main reason for this is because I didn’t really spend very much time in any one airport. By the time I sat down in Norfolk, the flight before mine had been postponed for about an hour, and it was looking like my flight was going to be postponed too, but rather than have us wait, those of us that got there early got to jump into the empty seats on the earlier flight. During this flight I learned that I could get sunburned from reading a book on an airplane w/ the window open. The next flight gave me just under an hour to get from one terminal to the next in the Philly airport; lucky for me there was a Philly soft pretzel stand across the way which I stocked up on and then survived on for the next 24 hours or so.

Now this next plane got delayed because it overheated, and they had to replace a vent or something like that. So when they loaded the plane we sat in 98 degree heat for an hour as the first engine wouldn’t start so they needed a new part. I feel there are some things people don’t need to know about their plane. These things include “We have engine 2 running but engine 1 won’t start and we need a new part.”… I’m also not too keen on things like, “For the first hour and half to 2 hours we’ll feel some turbulence”… but that’s just personal opinion.

The flight wasn’t half bad. I sat next to an air force kid, maybe a year or two younger than me, finally got to see Juno, and had pretty decent airplane food. The coolest part was opening the window flap and not being particularly sure if the sun was rising or setting, or maybe doing both. There was a thick yellow strip along the horizon that immediately changed to a dark blue (no subtle change in color), which then faded into space black with stars. The only true description would be to say it was looking at both night and day at the same time. A couple of hours later I flipped open the window again to see a color rich sunrise. Again the colors didn’t fade one into the other, rather they were striped along the sky, separated by thing grey clouds. On the horizon was a smoky red, then orange, then yellow, to green, to blue. I don’t know if you have ever seen a green sky before. I haven’t. I’ve heard stories about how if you watch the sunset over the ocean at the last minute on a clear day it will flash green, but this was actually a whole strip of Kelly green streaking through the sky.

Trains

When I hit the train station in Frankfurt, it was about 7:50 in the morning. Upon finding the ticket office, it was about 7:53. The woman asked if I wanted the next train, at 7:58… I’ve never seen a ticket person move so quickly… I hauled ass to the train, w/ luggage. There was a 7 minute delay.

Automobiles

We grow up our entire lives with certain basic rules in our minds. One of the most fundamental of these rules is, “Don’t get into a car with strangers.” But for whatever reason we have no qualms jumping into a taxi. And really, we do this at our most vulnerable times… like when you’ve been flying on a plane for hours w/out sleep, and your suddenly in another country, w/out a clue where you are going, or even how to tell the driver where to go. I didn’t do this once, but twice actually during my trip. The first time was between Frankfurt airport and the train station. It was during this point in time that I originally came up with this idea, as we hit the highway and I was like, this guy could totally just take me anywhere he felt like. By the time I grabbed the cab in Hamburg I really didn’t care. Which was amusing as the cabbie tried to talk American politics with me, and I was a bit out of it.

I was dropped off at Beselerstrasse 15; oddly enough it looked nothing like the picture online. It was the only run down looking place on the street with lotto and betting stores on the first floor, and no one there to let me in. Eventually, I ended up walking a bit. The house next door did in fact look far more like where I was supposed to be staying, and turned out to be 15a. We won’t discuss my feelings on having the same street number on two houses. But eventually I found my landlady and her Spanish speaking husband (he’s the only person I can understand around here, which I find amusing), and now, I’m just settling in…