Day One - In Route to Athens

Day One – In Route to Athens

First we stopped by some sausage place for lunch. Service was incredibly slow. Maybe a record. They cooked on sausage at a time, and probably spent another 5 minutes switching one with another. After consuming said sausage I determined that the extra time was needed to endow it with its uniquely wrinkled and crunchy outer covering. Hopefully my last meal in the states for a while.

Missouri to Chicago was a quick and uneventful hop. 1 Hour. I did look out the window and really was quite impressed by Missouri's stretch of farmland. Funny; I live in the middle of our breadbasket and need an airplane to get an eyeful of the fields. After this there was a long walk to the opposite end of the World's Busiest Airport. I joke that we're a third done. Then the fun begins.

We head to München... on Lufthansa! I got an eyeful of Germany before I even left our soil, much less our airspace. There was a guy from Serbia, too, but mostly a terminal full of jabbering blonds. I was in heaven.

I guess this was all yesterday; we flew against the night, so it's midmorning here and only 1 am in St. Louis. So; we got on the plane. On the ramp there was a cart of newspapers. I wanted one in German, but of course I didn't want to hold up traffic or take a paper from a genuine German, either. After a few apologetic and frenzied moments, I snagged one. It appears to be one giant business section. I don't know why that always happens to me... but it will serve.

I get on the plane. Dad heads to business class, saying, "You better go to the left." Of course, he means the left of the bulkhead, but I go to the left of the entrance and find myself in First Class. Everyone's speaking in German, so it falls to me to find my way back to coach. I manage, and since I boarded with my father, I'm one of the first.

The flight attendants assail me with an utterance born of years of experience. (Or perhaps they learn it in training). It's exactly halfway between Hallo! and Hullo! I say Hi. It's not quite as neutral, so they immediately ask my how I am and proceed to speak to me in English for the duration of the flight. Genius.

I'm not so wretched with my row mates. The first to arrive, on my right, is a tall, blonde female, 25, obviously German. For a few minutes I debate speaking in Deutsch and appearing an idiot or in English and removing all doubt. She asks me the wonderful question first.

"Spriechst du Deutsch?"

"Bisschen," I answer, and we proceed to describe our bosses and fathers getting first class while we were stuck in coach, that coach is far too small, where we live, and where we're headed, all in German. It's amazing what one can accomplish with even a partial hold on the language with creative speaking and discriminate listening.

Her name was Kristina, aka Stini, she lived in Hamburg, she had a boyfriend in Florida who looked just like my cousin Todd, and she was on her first business trip. After a while we did switch to English, but only after I (I hoped) demonstrated that at least some Americans care at least a little for other cultures. I also asked her how they had a city called Essen. She told me that of course she didn't know, only she didn't think of food, and that her boyfriend had asked the exact same question.

On my left was a married couple, sadly American. But all was not lost! Immediately to my left was Keiko, originally Japanese. I used my few hard won phrases and she was pleased, but mostly we talked in English, and her husband was also very nice. We shared music and travel stories until they both fell asleep. At this point Kristina was out too, so I tried to follow suit.

It kind of didn't work. The auras created too much interference. I couldn't distance myself mentally or emotionally from the fact that there was a perfect German here, and there was a perfect Japanese woman, and beyond was a whole field of Germans and their hum of German conversation blending into the roar of the plane, and also the plane was switching from a great model of our flight to a movie in no less than eight languages. I know I may be pathetic, but Lufthansa is right; there's no better way to fly.

The downside of all of this was that I cramped up really, really badly and couldn't move for 9 hours straight. I lived.

We arrive in Germany! We circle München for a while... there are mountains! So, we land and head through security again. Even that's better abroad. Again, the ambiguous greeting. I find it mildly but deservingly insulting. Are you one of our own, returning to the Vaterland? Or are you Auslander?

Um, right, the latter, and the worst sort at that.

I am emboldened by my encounter with Kristina and perhaps would have gone for the German, but my dad answers. I go through the sensor first, however, and once emboldened, once denied, I am hardly shy!

They ask if I am carrying a computer. I tell them nein, they point to the screen.

"Ach." I say, cleverly. "DVD."

They say stuff. They want me to take it out. I do. They put it in it's own box and run it through the sensor again, which confirms that it is a DVD player. Now the question...

"Spriechst du Deutsch oder Englisch?" I concede the latter apologetically, and then cheerfully add, "Bisschen Deutsch!"

They run my bag through again, sans DVD player, point at more stuff at the bottom. It's the landwire cords to the DVD player. I dig them out of the bag. Not those, they say. I'm confused, but then my calculator falls out. I'd forgotten I packed it.

"My Calculator?"

They seize it.

"Thisss...." With a laugh, I realize the problem. They don't know what it is. My memory returns to Stian, disbelieving my tales of Zelda and Mario on the Ti-84. I am only too happy to explain the situation like the imperialistic American I am.

"Taschen-rechner." I say omnisciently, pointing.

"Das ist eine Taschenrechner?!" (Best quote of trip, so far, albeit I haven't gotten out of the airport.)

"Ein sehr gut Taschenrechner." Unconcealed wonder. "Für meine Hausaufgauben." I want to stay and give demonstrations of Tetris, but by this time my dad, having had to fumble with his own very real computer, is finally through the sensor.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Mhmm..."

"I hope they hurry. We're going to miss our flight." (Spoiler: We don't.)

I danke everyone and we make a hasty retreat, shoving everything into my emptier carryon. The Athens flight is, from here, 2.5 hours. I don't mean to sound like a battle worn veteran, but that's nothing.

There are more German's on this flight. And a Spanish woman with a pretty baby. I LOVE Europe. If we went back to St. Louis right now, I would consider the trip worth it. It's silly to be so enamoured, but it also doesn't hurt.

So I expected the last flight to be boring, as some Americans with Chicago accents sat beside me. Instead I found myself extremely lucky yet again. The pair was originally from Chicago, but living in Zurich, as I found out when they came around for drinks.

"Möchtest du etwas zu trinken?" She asks, since I tricked her, and didn't speak English on the way in.

"Wasser ohne gas, bitte, danke schön."

They did the same, so then we really got talking, and didn't stop until Athens. We talked about poetry, literature, the northern lights, the pyramids, and, I must admit, languages. The woman was a linguist! We had a delightful chat of linguistic jokes that went right over her husbands head, literally and figuratively.

"Ah." He might cut in. "The imperative tense." To this his wife asked,

"Do you even know that the imperative tense is?"

"Well, yes, like, I am impaired..."

"No..."

But yes, it was very nice. She said it was a fun major and I should go for it. And her husband was a great guy, humbling himself at every turn and making everything hilarious. At one point I had finished my water and was holding it out to the attendant in a way that clearly signalled my desire to dispose of it. She merely raised her eyebrows as if to say,

"That's nice. That's really nice. You can hold a cup!"

With a laugh I turned back to my new friends. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well it may seem rude," he said, "But there's this thing, this feeling in Germany, Switzerland too... and it's like... 'How you like it." Oh, I'm going to do such a bad job explaining this..."

And so he did. We were in stitches as he described this phenomenon.

"It's like, if you want to hold your cup like that, that's okay, that's fine, they don't want to interrupt you..."

"My experience of holding the cup!"

"Well, yes, it's just; they're not going to take it away unless you ask them. 'How you like it.'"

"And if I should like it on their head, slowly dripping from their blonde hair?"

"There are obviously limits..."

Oh, they were great. I never cease to be amazed at my luck in good travelling companions. At last the plane lands. I look out the window and see hills and buildings. Suddenly I am lifting off the floor. It's Greece. It's really Greece, all there and suddenly real as it's never truly been real in my mind before. We are here.