No. 117

Making The Most Of A Long Day: Amy and I left from Ireland for Hong Kong on separate flights, so I purposely chose an option that would give me a little time in a country I’d never visited, because why the hell not? So the first words I ever spoke in German, to a German, in Germany, were “ein brezel.” That translated into “give me the pretzel that's as large as my head,” which was the first thing I ate when I emerged from the subway into the brilliant summer light of an eight hour layover in Frankfurt. The next German words I spoke were “ein pils,” this to a bartender named Brigette who spoke no English but sang every word of Springsteen’s The River when it came on the jukebox, two times in a row. No challenge in guessing who programmed it in. Her performance put me in a good enough mood anyway to say “ein pils” funf more times, before stumbling back out into the light and slurring “ein bratwurst” to the first sausage vendor on the right. He did me one better and handed back a grillbratwurst mit brotchen, or “hilariously long sausage ill-fitted onto a small round bun.” With mustard. I ate, drank and smiled my way around Frankfurt like this for the better part of six glorious hours, the real payout of which was the gape-mouthed, fatty German food coma that I fell into for most of the 11-hour flight to Hong Kong. Wunderbar.