The flight of the escapist.

Finally, on this 20 hour flight, some peace and quiet. 

Well, unless you count the germans, who seem to enjoy speaking across the aisle to one another. Fortunately, I don't understand a word they're saying, so it's like white noise.  I'm taking the Lufthansa, so we're making a stop at Frankfurt. On the plane the announcer's very german voice burst through the speakers, saying "We are about to land in 15 minutes, so please return to your seats NOW."

A smattering of laughter broke out among the passengers at the last word.  I immediately imagined Arnold Schwarzenegger (10 dollars says I got that spelling right) sitting back there behind the microphone, saying "Get back to your seats NOW, or I'LL BE BACK."

At the airport in Frankfurt I had to stay for 7 hours, so when we landed my primal senses instinctively turned themselves on and began sniffing out my primary means of survival:  free internet. Found said internet.  Found that it wasn't free.   Grudgingly, I pulled out my credit card, swiped, and opted for the 15 minute session.  Enough to send a few emails, or so I thought. 

As I logged in to my email, I miss-typed my login name.  It said "Teey".

Feeling daft, I re-typed it, and there it was again saying "Teey". 

Looking down at the chunky keyboard, I discovered in horror that the germans had all their keyboard keys jumbled up.  The letters were all over the place!  Where there should be a "Z", there was instead a "Y".  And then I spent the next 10 minutes looking for the "@" symbol, which was shyly hiding beneath the letter "Q".  After swiping my credit card again, I commenced in writing my very short email, which was excruciating because I was typing like a two-year old, or like my mother. 

By the time I clicked "send", my minutes had run out again.  I'm thinking the whole keyboard business is a nasty tactic to get foreigners to spend their Euros on typing. 

It was a lonely flight, which was the beauty of it.  In Boston, my friend called out my name really loud at the arrival gate, which was a lovely welcome too.