Last May - a solo flight abroad
Feb. 4th, 2005 01:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeanvieveSome trips promise you everything, but don't deliver. Some threaten you, cowing your spirit before you start. But then there are the trips that barely even wait for you to buy a ticket before sending you on a wild ride.
It started as a slower ride, the clicking of the wheels under the cart that pulled me up the slope bringing rising anticipation. Glee. I sat beside an older lady on the plane, who had the same rhythm and pitch as my Father's Mother. A professor, an educated teacher of either philosophy or english, as it turned out. The sort sitting on a committee to determine how deeply it has been piled, and how high. She spoke of the newest crop of candidates briefly.
She had a passion for Heidegger, this educator, and was on her way to a conference of him and Nietzsche. And so we fell easily into a discussion of many hours, as I expressed my famous and customary reserve with strangers. At length, I persuaded her to let me read the paper she was presenting, this Doctor Frank, to teach me a thing or two.
Within the first paragraph, I was dubious and dismayed. Seldom have I met living beings whose writing contained more exceptions and clauses outside of works of amusing fiction. Like The Princess Bride, that interrupts itself in fictitious margin notes declaring what earthly details happened before and after others in an attempt to place fiction in the midst of reality. But the paper got better, and I dared to offer a couple of small wording changes, that were met with a moment of silence.
Had I gone too far? I thought perhaps my mouth carried me away with it again, but then it was smoothed over. Maybe I was even charming, as by the end she handed me a pen and we cheerfully argued commas and redundancies.
And so the flight passed most pleasantly, with an exchange of raisins for tiramisu that still leaves me grateful to remember. And I will write, and tell her how I did in my first solo flight for my corporate masters, and hear how her paper was received by the lovers of Nietzsche there in Germany.
Landing in Frankfurt, I found the way down to the right train station easily enough. Then the muses struck. Comedy first. Picture a girl circling an automated kiosk, searching out meaning in the symbols and numbers like some archaeologist's apprentice confronted with a new and as yet untranslated obelisk of hieroglyphic scrawl. Around and around she goes, peering myopically in at the small lettering in search of those with a touch of familiarity to the scrap of parchment in her hand. Aha! Buy thou this ticket, and verily stand ye here for the chariot. She's certain.
Triumphant, she straightens. Livingston could not have been prouder, Magellan or Cook so self congratulatory. Now, to buy the ticket. The pleasant glow dims slightly. Cash only, after being assured that everything in Europe can take an ATM card. Off she dashes, in search of an ATM in the airport. Asking everyone and receiving odd looks. Foolish girl. Stop and think. ATM? Bank. Ah, there's a word that translates better. Geld, money, yes! Puzzled expressions clear, and fingers helpfully point out and gabble out directions not in English. The words mean little, but a serious of well intentioned digits send her at last to the symbol of modern convenience, and she has cash at last.
A mad dash - well, a brisk walk toting enormous black bags, and she's off to the obelisk again. This time prepared. With confidence she enters a code, pushes a button. Nothing. Again. now the foreign gods don't want her geld, and nothing she can do seems to coax their hunger.
A queue forms, and the girl steps back puzzled but willing to be schooled by others with greater experiences. An oriental couple step up, hit buttons. It wants their geld, but it spits it back out immediately again. Shifty, slant eyed devils trying to poison the poor obelisk. But its wise and protected by spells, oh yes. Another businessman steps up close, protective. We who are gathering off to the side are not allowed to see the silent communion of his fingers dancing over the buttons. His offering is gulped down, absolution for his sins spit into his hand. Off he dashes before we can muster questions about his odd faith.
The band of kindred infidels eye one another. A silent understanding, a plot. We spread out with one mind and will as the next in line steps up to make his offering. Loud in voice and dress, the British tourists hit buttons. Hesitate. More buttons. Soften their voices now as they discover that the buttons are not useful without the hieroglyphics and their translation. The three infidels have become five in a sigh, a downturn of lips, banded like brothers in defeat. A squad of determined foreigners who stand silent in their dedication not to be defeated by German covert operations.
A young student approaches, escorted by two women in uniforms with guns. The squad freezes, distracted by the shiny black guns as the girls laugh and jest with one another about our expressions in their foreign tongue. Going, going, gone, and in their wake on a tangent off goes the student. "Is anyone else feeling an idiot?", the heavyset Brit enquires at last, breaking our bond of silence. The girl looks up, sighs. The train she wanted pulled away two minutes ago.
Frustrated but plucky, the young archaeologist assistant steps resolutely forward to target a German sold-...er, businessman, breaking the silent solidarity of the helpless. With words and gestures she asks how to make offerings to the Gods of the Obelisk. He looks in turn confused by her odd terminology, but the two find some common ground for worship as he shows her how the locals appease the growling snake gods.
With an oath muttered low at the revealed simplicity of it, the oriental man steps up next to push their paper prayers within. They are granted communion and absolution, the girl soon after clutching her redemption in her hand as she heads downstairs.
But where is comedy without its twin, Tragedy? Thespis solitary and alone. Our heroine, feeling the weight of the hours at last as she waits for her train, pulls her sacred trust from her shoulders and sits upon a bench to await the next snake. Er, train. Her eyelids droop, close, nodding off until she puts her head down on her luggage with faith that the engine's roar will wake her.
And wake she does, to a hiss of pneumatics and metal on metal. The doors stand open to the belly of the snake, and she gathers her things quickly to dash for the inside. Settling in, she goes to check her directions in her computer bag. What computer bag, you may ask? Why the one she-... Where the fuck is it, she panics. The door is closed, the train moving slowly. But she can see her seat, empty. Nor can she open them as the train starts to move. Tears threaten, but she firms her lips to depart at the first stop to buy another ticket back. A smaller obelisk here, in a tiny suburb.
A merry chase up the stairs, to the north, south, everywhere. The sole amusement of Flughafen officials the pleasure of playing lost and found with visitors, sending her to booth and office in turn. A tear falls at last, and the girl finally stops her fellow female with the largest gun to inquire about the boys in blue. Khaki? Very well miss, just outside the airport. Their English is flawless.
And so the ride whooshes unexpectedly downward, leaving stomach in mouth for a second sampling of the contents. After a few hours of personal introspection and no small amount of self castigation, the train arrives at the proper train station in Mainz. Though pretty enough to lift her spirits, it is not yet enough to completely dry the tears falling inside, hundreds of hours of work and presentations lost to the vagarities of fate and thieves.
The ride goes on, a few more loops and hard turns threatening the stomach before pulling back into the station once more. Luxembourg's signs are all in French, but the people all speak that German language she struggles with so. Relations over meals are strained until she quickly reassures them she was in the majority that voted against the current American President. Then all is calm and amused once more. She learns things. She learns that Germans are extremely polite and law abiding drivers in cities, and maniacs on the Autobahn. She learns that Swedes drive like maniacs in town, but obey all the speeding signs in the country. She learns that the lessons of standing tall with a confident smile will carry you through a lack of preparation, a missing presentation, and that whatever you do, if you really want the adventure you have to buy your ticket and get on the coaster.
It started as a slower ride, the clicking of the wheels under the cart that pulled me up the slope bringing rising anticipation. Glee. I sat beside an older lady on the plane, who had the same rhythm and pitch as my Father's Mother. A professor, an educated teacher of either philosophy or english, as it turned out. The sort sitting on a committee to determine how deeply it has been piled, and how high. She spoke of the newest crop of candidates briefly.
She had a passion for Heidegger, this educator, and was on her way to a conference of him and Nietzsche. And so we fell easily into a discussion of many hours, as I expressed my famous and customary reserve with strangers. At length, I persuaded her to let me read the paper she was presenting, this Doctor Frank, to teach me a thing or two.
Within the first paragraph, I was dubious and dismayed. Seldom have I met living beings whose writing contained more exceptions and clauses outside of works of amusing fiction. Like The Princess Bride, that interrupts itself in fictitious margin notes declaring what earthly details happened before and after others in an attempt to place fiction in the midst of reality. But the paper got better, and I dared to offer a couple of small wording changes, that were met with a moment of silence.
Had I gone too far? I thought perhaps my mouth carried me away with it again, but then it was smoothed over. Maybe I was even charming, as by the end she handed me a pen and we cheerfully argued commas and redundancies.
And so the flight passed most pleasantly, with an exchange of raisins for tiramisu that still leaves me grateful to remember. And I will write, and tell her how I did in my first solo flight for my corporate masters, and hear how her paper was received by the lovers of Nietzsche there in Germany.
Landing in Frankfurt, I found the way down to the right train station easily enough. Then the muses struck. Comedy first. Picture a girl circling an automated kiosk, searching out meaning in the symbols and numbers like some archaeologist's apprentice confronted with a new and as yet untranslated obelisk of hieroglyphic scrawl. Around and around she goes, peering myopically in at the small lettering in search of those with a touch of familiarity to the scrap of parchment in her hand. Aha! Buy thou this ticket, and verily stand ye here for the chariot. She's certain.
Triumphant, she straightens. Livingston could not have been prouder, Magellan or Cook so self congratulatory. Now, to buy the ticket. The pleasant glow dims slightly. Cash only, after being assured that everything in Europe can take an ATM card. Off she dashes, in search of an ATM in the airport. Asking everyone and receiving odd looks. Foolish girl. Stop and think. ATM? Bank. Ah, there's a word that translates better. Geld, money, yes! Puzzled expressions clear, and fingers helpfully point out and gabble out directions not in English. The words mean little, but a serious of well intentioned digits send her at last to the symbol of modern convenience, and she has cash at last.
A mad dash - well, a brisk walk toting enormous black bags, and she's off to the obelisk again. This time prepared. With confidence she enters a code, pushes a button. Nothing. Again. now the foreign gods don't want her geld, and nothing she can do seems to coax their hunger.
A queue forms, and the girl steps back puzzled but willing to be schooled by others with greater experiences. An oriental couple step up, hit buttons. It wants their geld, but it spits it back out immediately again. Shifty, slant eyed devils trying to poison the poor obelisk. But its wise and protected by spells, oh yes. Another businessman steps up close, protective. We who are gathering off to the side are not allowed to see the silent communion of his fingers dancing over the buttons. His offering is gulped down, absolution for his sins spit into his hand. Off he dashes before we can muster questions about his odd faith.
The band of kindred infidels eye one another. A silent understanding, a plot. We spread out with one mind and will as the next in line steps up to make his offering. Loud in voice and dress, the British tourists hit buttons. Hesitate. More buttons. Soften their voices now as they discover that the buttons are not useful without the hieroglyphics and their translation. The three infidels have become five in a sigh, a downturn of lips, banded like brothers in defeat. A squad of determined foreigners who stand silent in their dedication not to be defeated by German covert operations.
A young student approaches, escorted by two women in uniforms with guns. The squad freezes, distracted by the shiny black guns as the girls laugh and jest with one another about our expressions in their foreign tongue. Going, going, gone, and in their wake on a tangent off goes the student. "Is anyone else feeling an idiot?", the heavyset Brit enquires at last, breaking our bond of silence. The girl looks up, sighs. The train she wanted pulled away two minutes ago.
Frustrated but plucky, the young archaeologist assistant steps resolutely forward to target a German sold-...er, businessman, breaking the silent solidarity of the helpless. With words and gestures she asks how to make offerings to the Gods of the Obelisk. He looks in turn confused by her odd terminology, but the two find some common ground for worship as he shows her how the locals appease the growling snake gods.
With an oath muttered low at the revealed simplicity of it, the oriental man steps up next to push their paper prayers within. They are granted communion and absolution, the girl soon after clutching her redemption in her hand as she heads downstairs.
But where is comedy without its twin, Tragedy? Thespis solitary and alone. Our heroine, feeling the weight of the hours at last as she waits for her train, pulls her sacred trust from her shoulders and sits upon a bench to await the next snake. Er, train. Her eyelids droop, close, nodding off until she puts her head down on her luggage with faith that the engine's roar will wake her.
And wake she does, to a hiss of pneumatics and metal on metal. The doors stand open to the belly of the snake, and she gathers her things quickly to dash for the inside. Settling in, she goes to check her directions in her computer bag. What computer bag, you may ask? Why the one she-... Where the fuck is it, she panics. The door is closed, the train moving slowly. But she can see her seat, empty. Nor can she open them as the train starts to move. Tears threaten, but she firms her lips to depart at the first stop to buy another ticket back. A smaller obelisk here, in a tiny suburb.
A merry chase up the stairs, to the north, south, everywhere. The sole amusement of Flughafen officials the pleasure of playing lost and found with visitors, sending her to booth and office in turn. A tear falls at last, and the girl finally stops her fellow female with the largest gun to inquire about the boys in blue. Khaki? Very well miss, just outside the airport. Their English is flawless.
And so the ride whooshes unexpectedly downward, leaving stomach in mouth for a second sampling of the contents. After a few hours of personal introspection and no small amount of self castigation, the train arrives at the proper train station in Mainz. Though pretty enough to lift her spirits, it is not yet enough to completely dry the tears falling inside, hundreds of hours of work and presentations lost to the vagarities of fate and thieves.
The ride goes on, a few more loops and hard turns threatening the stomach before pulling back into the station once more. Luxembourg's signs are all in French, but the people all speak that German language she struggles with so. Relations over meals are strained until she quickly reassures them she was in the majority that voted against the current American President. Then all is calm and amused once more. She learns things. She learns that Germans are extremely polite and law abiding drivers in cities, and maniacs on the Autobahn. She learns that Swedes drive like maniacs in town, but obey all the speeding signs in the country. She learns that the lessons of standing tall with a confident smile will carry you through a lack of preparation, a missing presentation, and that whatever you do, if you really want the adventure you have to buy your ticket and get on the coaster.
