In part 2 of this epic, I actually get to the place I intend to write about.
I unzipped a small cloth bag with “Continental Airlines” stamped on the front. Inside were a tiny toothbrush, a bite-sized tube of toothpaste, a disposable razor (I had one of these in the airport?), an isolated stick of deodorant, and a pouch of shaving cream. It’s probably cliché for people my age, but I couldn’t help but think of the “single-serving” spiel from Fight Club. In that film (being the poser that I am, I haven’t read the book), the sterile, individually packaged commodities the protagonist used on a daily basis served as a symbol for his alienation and growing lack of identity; I just thought it was really cool that they could fit an entire morning routine in a bag not much bigger than my hands. Like with the smokestacks the night before, most peoples’ depressing images of modern society were my tourist attractions.
I uncapped the boy-sized toothpaste and got to work. I was in a hotel bathroom, and depending on the quality of your hotel, those can be the best kind of bathrooms. This was one of those: unrivalled water pressure, a hundred different nozzles, plenty of soap. After yesterday’s hassles, it was a welcome reprieve.
The last shuttle back to the airport was leaving in two hours (1:30). After that, the plan was to waste time at the airport for another five hours until my new flight to Frankfurt left; they apparently only fly there from Newark once per day, so my new flight was scheduled exactly 24 hours after my old one. I checked out of my room and ate a predictably unsatisfying meal at the hotel restaurant. Water took about forty minutes, but the chicken sandwich wasn’t bad and I had a voucher. It somehow tasted better just by the virtue of being free. My shuttle back was the fabled bigger bus, but I found no interesting people this time. In front of me, a farming couple from Iowa and a farming couple from South Carolina swapped incredibly dull information about the shared corporate ownership of their stock.
At the airport, I spent a little time wandering the overpriced shops. One kiosk was selling XXL shirts with enormous pictures of Barack Obama’s face on them, the kind that are supposed to hang down past your knees. This rare crossover between urban fashion and presidential politics was heartwarming; no one ever wore popular clothes with John Kerry on them.
–
Four hours later, I was trying clumsily to eat a piping hot slice of cheese pizza from the airport’s Sbarro (a restaurant which is in every airport, based on my observation of two airports). The cheese kept sliding off, and the piece was so large that I had to awkwardly contort myself in my seat to eat it. I had just finished the Matt Taibbi book I mentioned earlier, and an odd thought occurred to me: if a social commentator like him were in this airport right now, looking at me, he might use my pizza troubles as a poignant illustration to set the scene. I could easily imagine a description of a “pasty tourist fumbling to eat a piece of over-priced fast food pizza” as a biting commentary on clueless yuppie-ism that would invariably make the author look more like a savvy outsider who was well above whatever he was writing about. On the flip-side, if I was one of those writers describing my own experience with the pizza, it would seem endearing, a bit of self-deprecating jive to make me as the author appear more human and maybe even invoke empathy in the reader: “Yeah, I know how those damn giant pizzas can be!”
After eating, I started Killing Yourself to Live by Chuck Klosterman; he’s more the type to use the latter technique, and I appreciated him for it.
–
After a full day of reading and waiting, I finally boarded a plane bound for Europe. Compared to my cramped and miserable flight to Jersey, this one was heaven: the plane was half-empty, I had a window seat in an empty row, there were no kids or bitter old men to be seen, and there were video screens in the seats that welcomed me in six languages. Above all, I knew how to attach the seat belts this time, and did so with pride.
During the taxiing, the pilot instructed us to watch the screens in front of us for a security briefing with vital information for our survival. Soon, the CEO of Continental Airlines appeared on my screen and told me that his company was committed to improving the experiences of consumers. He then gave me a rundown of his corporation and its objectives for the future; I wanted to take notes, in case there was a catastrophic engine failure and I needed to recite the mission statement.
Evening had just set as we made our takeoff. Large screens in the middle of the plane showed us where we were and how long we had to go; every time we passed over a major city, I put my face to the window to see the indistinguishable clumps of lights. After a couple of hours of this, the animated plane shifted over blue and I said goodbye to the North American continent for the first time in my life.
–
Flying in the face of thousands of hours of research by the nation’s top stand-up comedians, the airline food wasn’t all that bad; however, it was strangely symbiotic. Usually, when food is cooked and prepared together, everything tastes a little like everything else. But in this little box of chicken with rice and vegetables, everything tasted like one other thing in the box. The green beans tasted like carrots and nothing else; the carrots tasted like rice and nothing else; the rice tasted like marinara sauce and nothing else, even when there was clearly no sauce on it. The only thing that maintained its structural integrity was the chicken itself, preserved in one not-terrible hunk. Overall, it was a strange eating experience, but it wasn’t bad by any means, and at least the cheese didn’t slide off of it.
After dinner, I whipped out my Klosterman and read, as I had for most of the previous 24 hours. At one point, the author implored me to listen to Radiohead’s Kid A as I read a section connecting that album’s randomized lyrics to the events of 9/11. As the calm waves of “Everything In Its Right Place” emanated from my earbuds, I realized that I should probably try to sleep in order to avoid jet lag. We were set to arrive at 9:30 AM local time; if I didn’t sleep, I would be facing two days without a bit of rest.
Let me tell you: the comedians were off about the food part, but it is goddamn impossible to sleep on an airplane, even when you have two damn seats to yourself. I spent the next few hours in a tired daze, ordering my body to overcome my natural inability to fall asleep while sitting up. Finally, as we approached Ireland, I decided that avoiding jet lag was a lost cause and got up to take a shit.
While I was ejecting the remains of symbolic pizza and chemically peculiar vegetables, a lewd thought jumped into my head: this would be the best opportunity I’d ever have to become a solo member of the mile-high club. Everyone on the flight was asleep and the plane was dark, so no one would notice a person being in one of the bathrooms for a little too long. A couple of my friends often bragged about the public places where they had beat their meat, but had any of them ever done it on an airplane? I could be the first!
After a several moments of careful consideration, I decided to abort the sudden plan and return to my seat. I told myself that I might make a go at it on the way back, but I knew it wouldn’t happen: the moment was gone. I wasn’t particularly sad that it had.
–
As the plane neared the eastern coast of Britain, I opened my window and allowed brilliant sunlight to penetrate the dark cabin. After my eyes were done burning off, I checked the ground below to experience my first sight of Europe: rows of farmland, quaint little villages, et cetera. We crossed the North Sea and swung over Amsterdam, coming ever closer to my long-awaited destination. A flight attendant handed me a croissant and three grapes; I asked him for some coffee to stave off my slight exhaustion, but he never came back. Soon afterward, the screens came back on and started talking about what I should do when I got off the plane. I frantically tried to plug my earphones in and hear it, but the directions had moved on to the German version by the time I got it working. I grew a bit nervous.
The plane began its descent into Frankfurt. Before we touched down, I saw a stark contrast to my vision of Newark: train tracks with actual trains running on them, not rusted husks and discarded old railcars.
Forty hours after I arrived at the Ft. Myers airport, I stepped off of a plane into German territory. I followed the other passengers down a series of ill-lit, narrow walkways until I came to a passport check; I sidled into the line for non-EU citizens and presented my documents to a bald British agent. He stared at my passport photo, then at me, then at the photo, then at me…after fifteen seconds of this, I was sure that he was going to have me step aside. My passport picture featured the crew cut that I had sported for the first nineteen years of my life; by this point, I had a tangled mare of curly locks.
He continued looking from my passport to me, but finally broke the silence: “What are you doing here?” Oh God, I thought, he’s going to deport me. Would the contents of my carry-on be suspicious? Did the Germans have any American-style secret prisons for miscreants at airports? Then I realized what he was asking and replied that I was visiting relatives; he handed my passport back and told me to enjoy my stay.
I sighed and headed to the baggage claim. After grabbing my luggage, I walked towards the customs station and saw an EU flag above it, similar to the one above the EU-only passport line. Thinking that there was a non-EU customs stop somewhere, I did an about-face right before reaching this stop and walked away. After a quick search, I determined that there was only one station; this was confirmed when I saw a bearded man sporting a denim jacket with American flag/Harley-Davidson patches head towards the one I had just left. I turned around again, but this time, the officers were eyeing me warily, probably because of my odd behavior.
Just as I was about to walk by, a hipster accosted me and ordered something in German. I froze, not just because my first dose of German put me off guard, but also because he seemed wildly out of place. He was wearing a short-sleeved, plaid button-up, incredibly tight jeans, thick hipster rims and sported a slight swoop with his short bangs; he looked like he just got back from Warped Tour. I looked to my right and saw that the officers in the other lines were dressed in typical blue uniforms and were waving everyone through; there was no reason whatsoever for this customs officer to be dressed like a member of Manchester Orchestra.
I gathered all the German I learned from World War II shooters and mumbled, “Nie sprechen sie Deutsch,” an absolutely incorrect way to say that I didn’t speak German. I obviously had “Amerikaner” tattooed on my forehead, and he switched to English to demand that I open my bags. He sifted through my luggage with little interest (although I could’ve sworn he stopped a second when he found my Say Anything shirt), asked me how long I was staying in Germany, and sent me on my way. Was this the kind of topsy-turvy world I should expect in Europe? The pussies in SWAT gear and the hardasses in girl jeans?
No matter. I stepped through the security gate and met up with my aunt, ready to make up for lost cultural time. Finally, this trip was about to get fun. If I were to decide to write about this experience, I would finally be at the point where I would have something interesting to say.
