nostalgia

i don't act like coming to germany was hard or easy and instead avoid talking about it altogether.

i've been in germany for almost three years (as of may 13, 2008) and it's hard to remember a lot.

i remember that i said goodbye to my dad at home. he couldn't go with us to the airport because he had to work. i said goodbye to my mom, aunt and uncle at the cleveland airport. i took my next steps alone (shoed in flats to get through security easier) and thrust my passport and boarding passes at the next person who looked interested, who in this case was TSA.

the TSA guy made a mark on my boarding pass with a red magic marker.
"next." he said blandly. i flounced on. it was an adventure! "going through security" always sounded like such a glamourous thing only rich people do.

i took my laptop out of my chrome bag and set it inside a plastic bin. wow! this is incredible! i thought. i walked through the metal detector without incident and was left to hobble to some benches to organize my things. i couldn't see anyone anymore, not one family member, so i walked on and to my gate. it was only moderately crowded with people and i could distinguish the germans by their red passports. i listened to a couple people speaking german and realized how much i didn't know. unless of course i just hadn't learned those particular words. which was fine. right? right?

i followed lines for the next 24 hours. a line onto the plane, a line to my seat, a line off the plane in detroit, a line to the next gate, a line into the next plane, a line to my seat, which was between an old german guy who would proceed to drink beer after beer and fall asleep snoring loudly, and a girl who wouldn't stop talking.

"oh my god. europe. well like, you know, after we get out of frankfurt."
"germany's in europe too," her boyfriend-or-boy-next-to-her pointed out.
"well yeah i know that. but you don't think germany when you hear europe."
"you don't?" her boyfriend asked and i wondered.
"you think italy. spain. greece. france. amsterdam."
"that's a city, not a country."
"but it's in europe, right?"

so i wasn't going to real europe, at least not the kind of europe that people automatically think of. perhaps i was going to some kind of fake europe that doesn't really exist. perhaps the reason i never did well in german was because it's a fake language from a fake country and everyone just likes fooling gullible americans.

"WHAT MAKES GERMANY SO TERRIBLE?!" i wanted to scream to the girl next to me. instead, i listened to architecture in helsinki on my ipod and avoided liquids to avoid going to the bathroom on the plane. i ate the airplane meal that doesn't make you any less hungry and only serves to strengthen your skills in unwrapping a tiny bread roll while between other people's elbows. i watched everyone else sleep and envied everyone for being able to do so.

when we landed in frankfurt, i was a dehydrated, exhausted mess. the man who'd drank beer and promptly passed out looked rejuvenated and i made my first cultural note: beer+beer+beer+beer+snoring=good health.

i went to the passport check. i didn't know what was going to happen. i hefted my chrome bag on my shoulder and watched pale, angular passport controllers expertly slide passports to themselves and stamp. i looked at my passport. it seemed pretty stampable. agreeably stampable. who wouldn't want to stamp this passport?

"die nächste, bitte," one man said, gesturing. i stepped forward and handed my passport to him. he turned to the guy next to him and said something, the other man laughed, he laughed, ho ho ho, stamp. i took my passport back and stood there. he stared at me, his smile fading.

"danke. schön."

he nodded. "bitte." he turned his face to the line. "die nächste, bitte."

cultural note #2: it's easy to make friends.

i walked to the next gate and waited. i contemplated buying a water but ended up waiting, waiting, until the next flight