That airplane is badass. But it was going to Los Angeles, my flight is out of frame one to the photo left.
Airbus Industrie manufactured my noble steed to Miami, since Lufthansa is now running flight 462 with the acclaimed A380, today with one less business class seat open courtesy of me, myself, and I.
FYI, we’re still time traveling: T-minus 6 days to present thanks to inconsistent wifi and intermittent inspiration. Thanks for playing thus far…
Let’s do a little time traveling. Put yourself back six days; this post is now in real-time.
German is a significant challenge to learn. By no means have I conquered it, or even skimmed the surface, but only a few days of casual immersion have already reduced the complex phrasing and sometimes impossible pronunciations into an easily Rosetta Stoneable weekend project. Right?
Maybe not. My German is far from mature. Favorite word: “Exit”, or “Ass-Fart”.
But my good local friends make do, and a little (a lot) of alcohol, this trip teaches me, always greases the bilingual bearings. Und bier (or drei) and I was meeting “der schwanz des eichhörnchens” in the tongue twister schoolyard. The rest of the smokey bar in downtown Innsbruck? They waited ‘till midnight on the dot, March 3, to sing Happy Birthday to me. In English. And to buy more beer with shots and some shots on the side, with more English.
I then expressed my 24 years of gratitude by making out with the toilet bowl for a dramatic amount of time.
What I did for the next two days might strike fear in the hearts of fellow airplane picture taking folk, but we did spend the one sunny day on top of a snowy mountain and left the lazy haze for the slower traffic spotting day on Sunday. Oh well — it was fun just to be there. Any weather is good weather for doing the one thing I, or we, never totally appreciate: going through somebody’s drawers other than your own. Let me explain.
On the way to the airport bus, I picked up a newspaper I can’t read and went to buy a bottle of water but ended up with a tall glass bottle of sparkling fizz for the road. And at the bus stop for F - Flughafen, I totally skipped paying the fare by blindly following a season pass holder through the back door (oops).
These are the kind of experiences I encourage when abroad. In fact, one of the coolest things for me in another country is always going to the supermarket. My Hospitable Host took me to one where the only difference between us and the dozens of other people on line was that our two glass pairs of beer and wine was less than what they all were buying. I even convinced myself that it was occurring in a distinctly more interesting, aka European way than at home — no undertone of distrust, no carding, no sloshed party animals with popped collars. Only, in my mind, bespectacled German mathematicians and scientists, though I’m sure the crowd at the underground techno club later on was very different (but there was a lot going on and I honestly cant remember, duh).
These markets attract me mostly because they reject my reality and substitute their own. The ubiquity of a given brand or product or chain of stores remains but entirely shifted outside of what you know. It’s not like changes in geography or climate that everybody expects and drives us to travel in the first place. Grocery stores have a sneaky way of luring you in under the guise of familiarity, then proceed to sting you with not a single type of food or label you’ve ever heard of. And it doesn’t faze a single person there but you. Pretty humbling and good for drafting a global perspective.
May all just be me, but I like how travel writer Bill Bryson justifies the odd interest: “There is something about all this that feels privileged, almost illicit, like going through a stranger’s drawers.” Fact, especially because there is always knowledge to gain.
And with that came an early Ausfahrt the next next morning, up and away to the airport for a 6:10am turboprop whisperjet to Frankfurt and a seat to Miami on an airplane that just happens to have a huge upper deck.
On to Phase Two.
When it gets dark in Innsbruck, the mountains disappear. If you arrive at night you wouldn’t even know the true scale of the ranges that cradle the valley until you realize that all the stars and sky disappeared too.
Two small lights unusually high in the sky tip you off to something truly majestic: buildings around 7,000 feet in the sky, that in the daytime accept throngs of skiing and snowboarding locals by train, tram, and cable car links. At night, they mark a new boundary of experience for someone like me not familiar with much more than tall buildings and rolling hills.
In short: the view was f’king awesome.
It’s been three days since arriving in Tyrol territory and there’s only another six hours to go before hitting the road for points south and west and warmer.
The picture above was on a surprise alkohol audit of the Hofbrauhaus München. We hesitated to go to a tourist trap for lunch but this one is actually locally respected, with bursting brats and bursting dirndls. Got a pork loin with potato somethingorother, which was really very good, but c’mon, that’s not really why we went there…
Austria recap to be continued. Time for 240 minutes of sleep. (That sounds longer than 4 hours.)
A breath of fresh air on the birthday.
First class. Yeah. Here we go!
I wonder if these errands I’m running actually have to be done, or if I’m just burning off extra adrenaline. Long trips are fun but expensive. The illusion of cheap or free airfare can easily double or triple what could actually have been a cheap or free trip.
The final bill for this expedition to B&H, CVS, and Macy’s: something north of $600.
But hey! Now I have, among other things, a GoPro HD Hero 2 and some polarized filters for my camera. And shampoo. And bathing suits. And a relaxing morning on the E train with mustard and sauerkraut on a hypodermic hotdog for lunch.
What a great combination. I’ve never used the stuff, but I’d think that such a natural and obvious pairing of opposites must have something going for it. Pitch a snowball fight in the middle of a blizzard, then run inside for hot chocolate and a steamy shower: who hasn’t done something like that? Experience the cold just to enjoy the thaw that much more, and be all the wiser for having done both.
So my first vacation of the year, and my job, has me with 15 days to improvise. First plan was to spend almost all of the two weeks in Central America. But to give my host a wider berth I decided to juxtapose beach-side surf and turf with a Ricola-refreshing Alpine excursion. See Exhibit A, and click on it for a bigger, more detailed version:
Start and end in Charlottesville, VA (CHO). Via the mothership in New York (LGA) and my transit hub in Philadelphia (PHL), hit up Munich, Germany (MUC) and road trip with a local friend down to Innsbruck, Austria (INN) for three nights. Scream on a mountain somewhere along the way.
Then depart, via Frankfurt (FRA), to Miami (MIA) for one night with a buddy who retired early to Florida. From there comes the journey down to Managua, Nicaragua (MGA) for about five nights at a sustainable jungle village of earthly cabanas, sweet plantains, howler monkeys, and pretty sunsets.
Then, maybe, a cycle back through Miami, New York, Charlottesville and Philly (as always) to hug family, do laundry, and regroup with friends for a rock concert in a small port-city called Montreal (YUL). And back to work on the afternoon of the 16th.
Like most tumblrs, tweets, statuses and blogs, this is for anyone willing to read. And for mom, so she knows what the hell it is I’m doing.
