Back in Germany

I'm very jet lagged at the moment, but managed to crawl into work at 8am/2am. I need to catch up with some work then will update more about the rest of my trip.

Israel-Gaza protest in Luebeck

This is out of time order (I was purposely spacing out these posts to avoid apparent links with the name issue Mohamed was having in the US) but I thought I should say something before any more time passed. Back in January we went to Luebeck for a day, and by coincidence there was a rally protesting Israel's actions in Gaza, so I snapped some pictures.

Made it to Raleigh

I'm in Raleigh now. ... have to run. More later.
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Today the flight went without a hitch, and I made it to the meeting in time. One thing that really stood out to me was the banter in the shuttle from the hotel to the airport. One guy was going on about "Arabs." First it was that the CIA did not have enough Arabic translators, then he complained about his "Arab" shuttle driver the day before and how he was late to pick him up and it was probably because he was praying. The women he was talking to agreed and laughed with him. Then there was a woman with a little kid and a baby that got on the shuttle, they didn't have coats and it was very cold. They also were not able to get their checked bags the night before. Then as the shuttle driver was driving, with snow and ice on the road, they were making fun of him and his driving and laughing to each other right in front of him. I was ashamed of how openly rude they were toward him. I was rude to the airline guy at the counter the night before (after he made racist comments about Ethiopians I might note), but in contrast this guy WAS doing his job. At the airport the driver helped the woman, who was carrying the baby with one arm and leading the toddler with the other, get her bag and stroller out of the van and up onto the sidewalk (in contrast to the people who were criticizing him) and G and I helped her get it inside and set up quickly so they were out in the cold as little as possible. Their criticism reminded me of how people do this in checkout lines in grocery stores in America. In the past, sometimes someone in front will turn to me and loudly criticize the cashier, with a laugh at the end and expect me to laugh and agree with them, just for small talk. Americans really are very rude towards people they see as different or beneath them (and can be unhelpful when they have the opportunity to do something). Being away from that aspect for a year really makes it stand out now.

In Raleigh I got checked in to the hotel then went to find some lunch. Immediately walking out of the hotel things were different. There was no sidewalk to walk from the hotel to the street. It is only designed for people driving in and out, so I had to walk in the road (snow was everywhere else) to where the sidewalk started at the intersection. And the sidewalk was in horrible shape, narrow, broken, cracked and tilted--typical of a lot of cities in the US, because most people drive and hardly anyone walks. Then crossing the intersection people seemed to expect to be able to immediately turn despite me waiting to cross the road at the light change. Anyway, I found a local BBQ place and knew I had found the right place from the smell in the air as I got closer to the door! I ordered some pulled pork BBQ with coleslaw, corn chowder and iced tea--it was wonderful!!! One funny thing, that I half anticipated before, was the mild awkwardness in ordering food in English. For a year now whenever I've ordered food I have attempted it in German, and the German phrases popped immediately into mind when the waitress came; I had to ignore those and use English.

I've really missed real southern food while out of the US. I know exactly where I'm going for lunch tomorrow!

Stuck in Dulles

I flew back to the US yesterday with a coworker for a conference. It's been about a year since I've been back. It felt really odd listing my resident country as Germany and giving a hotel as my address in the US on the customs form. It asked me to list all the countries I had been to on the "trip." There wasn't nearly enough room so I just left it blank and assumed "trip" just referred to this flight back. The money also looks really strange to me now, the bills are all the same size and color, kind of old fashioned looking--I had to look for the numbers to tell how much money I had (I know this doesn't sound odd to Americans, but I have really gotten used to European money where you can tell at a glance what it is), and the dimensions are off, too long and thin. The dimes and quarters also seem too thin to me. But let me back up. I left Ploen on the train at 5:15 am, got some breakfast and transferred to the metro at the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof, and made it in plenty of time to checkin, go through security and to the flight to Frankfurt which boarded at 9:40. The flight from Frankfurt was delayed on the runway for an hour because "the numbers of passengers didn't match." They counted and recounted everyone and kept asking for a few people over the PA including "Mohamed" (see this earlier post about Mohamed). Then they said the problem was that some people had canceled their flight and then rebooked it ... but if they counted the boarding passes handed out and the people on the flight then shouldn't it have added up regardless? Anyway, once they were satisfied with the number we took off. In Dulles I coundn't help getting the feeling we were in a military base in Siberia. Everything was snow and ice and concrete with giant machines rolling around and people in dark uniforms acting irritated. Of course we were late for the connecting flight from Dulles to Raleigh, I got through security in record time however--only one double take at my Egyptian and Ethiopian visas, in this process I had to pick up and recheck my bag, and only after rechecking my bag was I able to find out that the next flight was canceled because of snow before we even got there. They redirected me to the customer service counter, which had a line a mile long. There were touch screens and phones it said to use to rebook if you missed a flight. I talked to the guy on the phone and was told the next flight was in the morning (despite another flight at 10pm with a different airline on a sheet of paper listed all the flights that was laying on a counter nearby). I said I needed a place to stay tonight and he said the airline didn't pay for hotels for weather reasons. So I got back in line. At that point my coworker caught up as well as a crowd of non-citizens that were just coming out of security, and we waited in line. We prepped our stories that this had nothing to do with weather and was the delay caused by Lufthansa, and I had circled possible connecting flights on the sheets one of the airline people had lost. Finally I was pulled out of line and told that they had a hotel for me and to go to the front counter. An older women behind me came up and tried to ask what was happening, she spoke German, and only a little English, very slowly. The airline person kept yelling at her to get back in line over and over before she could finish her sentence, and she was just trying to explain to her to slow down and that she couldn't understand. I pulled her aside before they called security to taser her and explained to her in German as best I could that the flights were canceled because of the snow and that the airline was booking rooms for us tonight and the connecting flights were in the morning. She seemed relieved and went back to the line to explain to everyone in German what was going on (in sharp contrast to the airline worker that was yelling at everyone rapidly in English). At this point my coworker asked me if I was sure if this was a democratic country we were in--it seemed like a military dictatorship to him. OK, so we went to the front desk, where we were told to go, and guess what, no one was there (see my earlier post about being stuck in New York). At this point we couldn't return past security without a boarding pass so we were stuck there. We bothered workers from another airline and they went back and pulled someone out from an office in the back (apparently they had ordered a snack delivery) who started processing our hotel form and gave us vouchers for supper ($15) and breakfast ($10). We asked if there was a shuttle to the hotel because we didn't have a car, so she explained how to find the shuttle and when it left. We asked if we could get our bags that were checked in and she looked at us like we were from another planet. We explained that we didn't have any clothes to change into, or anything... She gave us each a "night bag" that contained a t-shirt, and told us to go around back to another counter to get our boarding passes for tomorrow morning and so on (then I think she went back on her snack break). We went around and waited in line again as the sun set. There were some very tired people in line there trying to figure out what to do. Finally it was our turn and we waited to get our boarding passes. While he was looking at his computer and chatting with coworkers, and went into some weird story about Ethiopians and spices and the Flintstones cartoon (I kid you not, it didn't make any sense ...?), we asked if we could get our bags and then the guy rolled his eyes and went into a long story about how hard that was and the bags were in a different building and someone would have to get them and so on... I asked how long it would take and he said at least an hour. So I asked if I could have one of their uniforms to wear tomorrow--in fact it looked like I could wear his clothes and I offered to trade clothes with him. The least he could do for visitors to his hospitable country. My co-worker chimed in that he wanted one of the Qatar airlines women's outfits for a touch of color. Then we carried on with a loud conversation, that since this guy was giving me his uniform it was only fair that another airline give you one also. I started to take off my coat like I was going to change. The other people waiting started paying attention at this point to see what the guy would say or do. The counter guy was not amused but at that point he did hurry up and we finally did get our boarding tickets and we were able to get out of there. We took the shuttle to the hotel, which was not next to anything else, so we are stranded for the time being at the hotel. We got some supper, but that also seemed to take forever and several people around us got their food before us, eventually we ate and I was on the edge of collapse and had to lay down. Our waiter wasn't anywhere to be seen so I just left some money on the table and went back to my room and slept. Then I woke up before 3am local time--jet lag! I have to say, for all my complaining here, this was handled much better by Lufthansa than the time I was stuck in New York (JFK) by KLM. Today to goal is to get to Raleigh and change clothes before the conference starts.