Flying to Frankfurt! -- in transit

It's October 3rd. 

It's October 3rd, Thursday morning. 

It's October 3rd, Thursday morning, 9:27. 

I'm leaving Nice. 

The airport seems a lot smaller than it did when I flew into Southern France exactly one month ago. Perhaps it's because living in Nice for a month has acclimatized me to excessive stimulation. It took a long while for me to not feel overwhelmed by the sounds, smells and movement of the city,  but by the time I stepped on bus 98 at 8:10 this morning, I felt like I was leaving the comfortable and familiar once again.

I'm going to miss listening to French and congratulating myself for the bits and pieces of conversation I understand.

Bonjour, ca va? 

Ca va bien, merci. 

Au revoir. 

Pardon.

De rien. 

Ou? 

Qua? 

Comment?

Qu-est que ces? 

Bisous!

Franchement!

Merde!
 
Parlez vous francais? 

Attention!
 
Someone asked me for directions last week. Me. For directions. I was so shocked that I almost didn't respond. But after I put my jaw back into place, I gave very simple, straight-forward directions to Place Massena (she was only five minutes away and Place Massena is impossible to miss, but that's entirely beside the point).

I felt nearly as accomplished as when I gave tourists tips on the best coffee in Newport, Wales.

Of course, there are only two cafés in Newport, Wales, but this is also beside the point.

Saturday will mark four months of travel, and within those four months, I've found two homes. My home in Buckinghamshire with Charlotte, Jack, Harry and Violet, and my home in Nice with Baris. They couldn't have possibly been more different, except that in each of these homes the things I love about myself were nurtured, appreciated, encouraged.

And I purposefully didn't apply a lot of makeup on both mornings of departure.

Leaving this second home makes me feel heavy. And not merely because I've been gorging on Parmesan and Camembert for the last 30 days.

It's ironic. I leave pieces of myself in the places I love, but my boots get terribly heavy every time I move. It's hard to lift my feet. It's hard to take the next step. It's hard to stop saying the word "hard" and just say the word"step".

Every time I move from a good place, I have to remind myself that, "Aimee... this is how you want to live your life, girl. Non-attachment, non-attachment, non-attachment. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. Let yourself flow. Enjoy the experience of crashing against the rocks and the bends of the stream. Allow these collisions to shape you, change you, mold you, give you energy, take your energy and keep you flowing. Once you've crashed against enough rocks, the stream bed will widen and you will feel peace with slowing down. But now... now is not that time. Now you have too many dreams -- and not the kind of dreams that have transmogrified into beastly burdens. The kind of dreams that help you comprehend the vast array of opportunities available to you."

Opportunities, shmopportunities. I'm going to miss weekends with Baris, crepes with Tessa and climbing with Patrick. 

But here goes.

Crash. 

Break. 

Curve. 

Move. 

Jumping out of the waterbed with the down duvet and into the unknown.

This is my adrenaline rush. This is the sort of thing that makes me feel alive.

Baris followed the bus to the airport on Sophia. It felt wonderful to have someone say goodbye to me at the terminal. It was a beautiful sign of all the things I'd gained from my stay in Nice. It felt terrible to have someone say goodbye to me at the airport. It was a beautiful sign of all the things I was leaving behind.

I like getting to airports two hours early. I do this so that I don't have to worry at all about getting lost or confused and can travel without contracting a migraine headache (which always seems to occur if I arrive any later than two hours before my expected departure).

But it's the Mediterranean. No one is at the terminal at 9:00 in the Mediterranean. It literally took me twenty minutes to check in my bags and get through security. Not only was the security team blissfully efficient, a sweet Frenchman at the end of the line told me to take my time as I rushed to zip up my boots, asked me where I was flying into, and then helped me find my gate.

I have never encountered such helpfulness in an airport. My past experiences left me with the impression that airport employees are trained to pretend that customers don't really exist. That's not really a person asking you a question -- it's probably a particularly irksome draft. The conscientious employee makes a note about how the facilities could be better ventilated, and then carries on with what he was doing in the first place. Which is not answering the question asked by the "irksome draft".

Gate found, I'm now sitting in stillness. No babies cry, no children scream and scamper about between suitcases. Quiet chatting on cellphones and faint reverberations of music. The whisper, rustle of pages being turned and the popping of vertebrae as customers adjust their postures in the hard airport chairs. Legs lounge across luggage. Heads fall against backs.

People seem content and resigned to be leaving this city.

It's October 4th.

It's October 4th, Friday morning.

It's October 4th, Friday morning, 9:39.

I've arrived in Frankfurt. 
I'm finishing this post from the cute, functional, temporary studio apartment of my charming Italian couchsurfing host. The white walls appear rather stark, but they're complemented by playful mirrors and blue paintings with psychedelic owls. The chairs are off-white, the tile floor is white, the lampshade is white, and the cabinets are white. The only thing that makes me feel like I'm not in a German apartment is the fact that the white and brown clock over the white desk isn't working.

It's drizzling and it's cold. This feels like Germany.

I left for my first bus at 7:45 yesterday morning and met with Danilo (my host) at 7:00 yesterday evening. Even though it was nearly 12 hours of travel, they were the least stressful 12 hours of travel I've experienced thus far in my lustrous career as a vagabond. 

My first flight landed in Barcelona at 11:50 and I found myself with three hours to burn until my flight to Frankfurt at 15:05. I switched my kindle to life, read a few words, and then sat silently until it turned grey in my hands. I opened my laptop, thinking it was probably high time to sum up France, but closed it sullenly after staring blankly at the screen for a few minutes.

Transitions. Why are transitions so damn scary?

I was still feeling too heavy to pick up my thoughts and write, so I walked. I always walk when I feel heavy. When I lived in Grand Junction, I would walk off my heaviness at night, stopping under streetlamps to mind-dump pages of stream of consciousness and sketch the cats glaring at me from the shadows and quietly observe the way the light melted into darkness. Transitions.

I write once I've trudged off some of the emotional sludge and can dredge my thoughts out from under the f*cking brontosaurus that's squatting on my brain.

So I pulled my bag up and down the terminal, back and forth, listening to Radiolab, This American Life and focusing on my breath. Like a good yogi. I also checked out all the Spanish chorizos and alcohols. Like a bad yogi.

I made circles until 14:35, drawing confused and condescending stares from the people who were enjoying their coffee and paella in the expensive, plastic restaurants I'd passed a dozen times.

There goes the blank looking girl with the green suitcase again. Poor thing. She's either profoundly lost or profoundly indecisive about what she'd like for lunch. 

No, I thought back at my imagined accusers, I'm just heavy. Profoundly so. 

I joined the line at my gate and boarded my final plane for the day. I relished the feeling of success as I ticked it off my list of steps to take to get to Danilo's.


Bus from Baris' to the airport = X
Fly from Nice to Barcelona = X
Fly from Barcelona to Frankfurt = X

Of course, I still had quite a few steps to take before I'd reach Danilo's, but I gave myself a proud pat on the back for ending up in my 6F window seat on my Vueling flight to Frankfurt.

It's sometimes hard to believe that I was once the girl who would have a panic attack when asked to make a phone call. That girl is still inside me somewhere, but thanks to my last two trips, she's developed enough confidence in herself, in the goodness of people and in the idea that things work out, that she's cooled her jets. She now flies in foreign countries with only an inkling of discomfort.

There was a baby across the aisle from seat 6F. Well, I reasoned, every other part of this trip has gone perfectly, so it would only be fair if a baby started wailing now and made this flight unbearable. 

But the baby did not wail. The baby made happy cooing sounds. For two hours. By the time I got off the plane, I had so many happy endorphins coursing through my system (thanks to my mama instincts) that I could have probably flown back to Nice without an airplane. 

As the plane flew from Barcelona to Frankfurt, none of us had to pass through immigration (the only nice thing about the Schengen agreement). We just headed straight for the baggage belt to collect our luggage, and for the first time in my life, my plum backpack was the first to make the rounds.

Jesus. How has this trip been so nice?

I swung my Osprey pack onto my back and tightened the cinches. Baris had worn it to the airport, so it needed quite a bit of adjusting before it fit my frame again. Once I felt secure and comfortable, I set off in search of the Skyline.

Skyline from terminal 2 to terminal 1 = 
S8 or S9 to Frankfurt Hauptwache = 
Northbound subway to Grüneburgweg = 
Meet Danilo in front of Le Café Bistro at 18:15 =

Okay. 

I wandered around the terminal for a few minutes before I conjured up the courage to approach the friendly looking German lady at the information desk to inquire about getting myself to Terminal 1. I started the conversation with an awkward, "Hi!" trying to communicate that I spoke NO German without having to actually verbally admit that I spoke no German.

The friendly looking German lady accepted my lack of German and amicably directed me to the Skyline upstairs. I boarded the train within minutes and zipped off to Terminal 1, standing backpack to shoulder with the rest of the tired, smelly travelers.

Skyline from terminal 2 to terminal 1 = X

Making progress. Hmm, hmmm.

 I had absolutely no idea what to do once I got to the train station, though. S-bahn. S-bahn eight or nine. Tickets? Ah! Ticket machine found. Now where do I find the S-bahn? S-bahn eight or nine? 

After wandering around aimlessly (I didn't want to approach someone and ask in English whether or not they spoke any English), I happened to overhear a friendly looking German man offering directions to a lost looking American tourist. As soon as the tourist left, I pounced on the English speaking gentleman.

"Excuse me, can you tell me how to get to S-bahn eight or nine?"

The German's eyes twinkled, "Just follow that man in front of you, " he gestured to the American tourist who had just left, "That's the easiest answer I can give you."

"Wonderful! Thanks so much."

And I chased my fellow American down the escalator and to the S-Bahn.

The train was crammed and I felt unbearably guilty for wielding such a space-hogging, cumbersome backpack. I think I squashed the woman behind me up against her bicycle on several occasions (although it did make me feel better that her bicycle took up nearly as much space as my backpack), and I never knew what to say. Because I don't speak German. So I just looked at her apologetically every time the train threw me into her handlebars and decided that sad expressions would have to suffice.

S8 or S9 to Frankfurt Hauptwache = X


When you're asking for directions in Germany, do try to remember that they pronounce their Ws as Vs and that CH makes the K sound. Also remember that everyone in Germany speaks English and everyone in Germany understands what Americans really mean when they try to speak German.

"Is this Hoptvash?" I innocently asked my companions.

"Hoptvash? Oh, Hawptvaukuh! Ja, this is the stop."

Hauptwache, Bourget. Hauptwache.

I disembarked, untangling myself from the woman's handlebars and doing my best to avoid rolling over toes with my carry-on.

Northbound trains. Umm... are they marked as northbound? What's the word for north? Ach. Do I have to buy another ticket? Buh... I'll just... maybe... this one looks good.

So I headed down a flight of stairs towards the promising pink line. I looked around for a ticket machine, convinced that my ticket from the airport wouldn't be valid for a trip in the city. My furrowed brows and my pacing legs made the point to all that I was lost.

So of course a kindly old gentleman eating ice cream approached me to ask if I needed help. And of course he spoke English. And of course the girl sitting next to me was getting on the same train and knew the station where I needed to get off.

Northbound subway to Grünbergweg = X

I disembarked at Grünbergweg, two stops down (the ice cream gentleman motioned me from the adjacent car, making sure I knew to get off the subway), and catapulted towards the exit.

Exit? I don't even know the word for exit. What if "ausgang" means "next subway"? 

But I followed the "ausgang" signs regardless, checking my phone and noticing in dismay that it was already 18:30.


Meet Danilo in front of Le Café Bistro at 18:15 = Damn

Because I didn't want to chance getting lost when I was already running late, I immediately accosted a cute German couple, "Excuse me, do you speak English?" I ducked my head in shame for not knowing how to ask in German.

"A little bit," the woman answered in a perfect accent.

"Can you tell me where Le Café Bistro is? It's supposed to be on Grünbergweg."

"Ja, ja..." the man pulled out his iPhone and googled it. "Take a left right up here --
"

"And walk about 400 meters," the woman added.

"It'll be on your left," the man finished.

"Thanks for your help!"

And I raced off towards Grünbergweg and Danilo, hoping that my host would still be waiting for me.

Germany... Germany is cold, I noticed as I ran. People wear scarves and winter jackets instead of French polka dot dresses. Nice scarves and winter jackets. But where is everyone? I looked around at the closed shops and nearly abandoned streets. Does Germany really close at 18:30? That seems a bit early. I thought Frankfurt would be busier... odd. The trees! The trees are changing colors. It's fall! Ah! First change of season for this trip. 

I arrived at Le Café Bistro at 18:40, huffing and puffing and immensely proud of myself. I had succeeded in checking off all of the steps.

Le Café Bistro was closed.

And my Italian host was nowhere to be seen.

"Crap. Maybe he got tired of waiting. Maybe this is the wrong Bistro. Maybe he hasn't arrived. Maybe... maybe... Aha! There's a nice looking couple!" 

And I jumped across the street towards the couple walking in the opposite direction. Laden down as I was with my backpack and bag, they quickly outdistanced me. So I swiveled to the other side of the street, where I noticed another bundled up German couple. With nice scarves and jackets.


I assumed my apologetic "help me, I'm lost" posture, and approached the couple, crumpled paper with directions and phone number firmly clasped in my right hand.

"Hi, umm... do you speak English?"

"A little bit, ja."

Little bit, my ass. I bet you speak better than I do.

"Do you have a phone I could borrow? I was supposed to meet a friend in front of this bistro at 18:15, but it's closed and he's not here," I offered them the crumpled paper with my information. "Would it be okay if I called him?"

The man already had his "handy" out before I'd finished my plea, and the woman was grabbing the paper from my outstretched hand. "It's 18:45 now," the man flashed his watch.

"I know," I hung my head. All my efficient bus/plane/train/subway hopping hadn't gotten me to Le Café Bistro on time. "Perhaps I've missed him."

The woman dialed the number and handed me the handy. The mechanical voice of a German recording played in the background, kindly letting me know that I'd dialed the wrong number.

"Something's wrong," I nervously handed the phone back to the woman. "What does it say?"

"This person has changed his number."

"Oh..."

"Do you have an address?"

"Yes, I do. I'll just wait for him in front of his house," a simple enough solution, but my mind was already concocting all the worst scenarios wherein my host didn't give me the right number because he didn't want me to stay with him and I'd be stranded on the cold streets of Frankfurt until I met my next host on Sunday and I'd get frostbite again and all my toes would fall off and then my fingers would go and I'd die of pneumonia and --

And I caught sight of a dark haired, smiling fellow in a black jacket bounding down Grünbergweg. He waved at me. 

"That's him!" I said ecstatically to the people helping me. "That's my friend! Yes!"


"You're sure that's him?" the woman replied, happy that things were working out for me but concerned that I might somehow be delusional.

"Yes, that's my friend. Thank-you for your help," I smiled gratefully and she replied with an exuberant, "Wonderful! Welcome to Germany. Enjoy your visit."

I love Germans. I love Germans almost as much as I love Italians.

My host apologized profusely for being a little late, telling me that he's working on a project at the university (he's a history professor) and couldn't get away in time. I smiled and assured him that it was no problem -- I was (as always) just worried that I was in the wrong place.

"It was just weird that it was closed," I said as we walked to his place.

"I forgot that it is a German national holiday. Everything is closed. I bet you wondered why the streets were so quiet."

"I was wondering. Goodness, I guess that certainly explains why I thought that Germany shuts down at 18:30." 

I settled into his tiny flat, drank a glass of water, and calmed down. My whole body felt stiff and tired. It had been a long day, regardless of how little stress I'd actually encountered. My new friend had to run back to the university to finish up the project he'd been working on, so I joined him, stole a bit of university internet and let facebook know that I'd arrived safely in Germany.

We returned to his apartment an hour later, I took a sublimely refreshing shower, and then we zipped up our coats and went out for a German dinner.

My goodness, it was so German. I thought of my mother (who is 100% German in her heritage) and how much she would enjoy the meal in front of me. I ate bacon and cheese and eggs and potatoes. And I drank apfelwein. I felt like my German roots deep down were finally being satisfied, as they drank up the heavy, fatty, salty, enormous plate of food.

I slept so hard that night. Between the food and the flying, I was nearly comatose. It felt amazing.

"Thank-you for the great evening," I managed to murmur before I passed out.

"Welcome to Germany," my Italian friend smiled.

Germany. I'm in Germany. I was in France this morning, but now I'm in Germany.

I smiled.