Ish Shrpicka Kine Doytch: I don´t Speak German (spelled phonetically)

The Positives: from NYC it´s only seven hours to Frankfurt instead of eight or nine from O´Hare; I made it onto the flight that was not cancelled; I had my own television screen with hundreds of On Demand movie and TV options; I got two meals and one snack on the plane; free booze.

The Negatives: the dude in front of me was a gigantic, seat recliner. Not only did he recline his seat manually, he was such a huge German that the simple act of sitting in his seat dropped his head rest into my forehead.

But the list of The Positives outweighs that of The Negatives and I made it to Frankfurt after two mindless romantic comedies, three sitcoms, and zero sleep.

I thought that I was hoping on a train and heading to Cologne for the SC Freiburg v. FC Cologne futbol match. But right out of baggage claim I saw Andrew´s smiling face and my concerns about reading and travelling alone in Germany were gone. Andrew was there with Daniel and Mark, two friends of his and two absolute nuts for SC Freiburg. We rushed to Daniel´s car to embark on the 200 km trip to Cologne. I was tossed a beer (legal in Germany) and Daniel took off at a cool 200kph - Autobahn bitches.

Daniel is the father of the family Andrew babysits for and is an incredibly gernously man. He has provided Andrew with countless futbol tickets, always buys the beers, hosted us for dinner at his restaurant, and always seems to know someone or someway to help out. Very good guy.

The ramifications of the Cologne game were huge. There are three German soccer leagues: first, second, and third leagues. The best league is First League and each year, the top two finishers from the Second League get to move into First League and the bottom two First Leaguers move down. The third place finisher and the third to last finisher play a two game series for moving or staying rights. The same occurs between the Second and Third Leagues.

SC Freiburg won the Second League last season and was currently sitting in 14th Place of the First League, one spot out of the play in/out game. A win or a tie would guarantee another season in First League.

We settled into the Freiburg, standing room only section of Colgne´s very modern, 50,000 seat stadium. The place was filled before kick-off. In stark contrast to an American anything, the Freiburg section of the stadium was sold only non-alcoholic beer. An effort to minimize in raucous.

Whether it worked or not, I´m not sure, but as Frieburg took a second half 2-1 lead, our section quickly became a falling room only section. Any respects for personal space were ignored as SCF moved one step closer to remaining in the First League.

FC Cologne would score a late tying goal, but the scrappy Freiburg team would maintain the tie and when the final whistle blew, I saw the happiest 14th Place finisher I´d ever seen. Daniel described it as ¨better than Christmas day¨and ¨better than last season´s championship.¨

However you slice it, I was happy for the Freiburg faithful and exhausted. Standing for two-and-a-half hours after not sleeping for hours just off a plane is some difficult stuff. So, as Ska music blared through Daniel´s speakers and we cruised at 200-plus kph, I fell fast asleep.

Then slept a good 12 hours that night.

Germany was not like my previous few stops; it was cold, overcast, and a bit rainy. I wouldn´t see the sun for more than an hour until I´d reached the one-week mark in Europe. When it did finally arrive, it made for an absolutely gorgeous day in Freiburg, Germany´s - if not the world´s - greenest city.

This place is extremely earth concious with an incredible public transportation system, solar panels on nearly every roof, friendly bike lanes, and various other eco-boosters such as rooftop gardens and a daily farmer´s market. Andrew works for Rolf Disch, arguably the world´s foremost green architect. He built his home to rotate with the sun to maximize it´s efficiency and power generation producing 4x the amount of energy it consumes, a ¨Solar Settlement¨with 50 houses each with a positive energy balance (makes more energy than it uses), and the ¨Solar Ship,¨a completely modern and realisitic urban complex complete with grocery store, pharmacy, office space, and rooftop housing with all the bells and whistles of energy conservation. It´s an impressive sight. The soccer team - which is publically owned - provided season tickets for investors in the stadiums solar renovation in which they put solar panels on the roof to heat the team´s showers.

My first few days in Germany were spent adjusting to the time change. I must admit I made little effort to adjust because I was thoroughly enjoying sleeping as much as I wanted. I suppose I still haven´t really adjusted as I´m maintaining about a 2am bedtime. Oh well, such is doing whatever I want.

I explored Frieburg and found it to be a very beatiful and active city. It sits in the southwest corner of Germany in the Black Forest, home evidentally, of Black Forest chocolate cake. I have yet to partake.

Andrew and I hung out for the most part and didn´t push my exhaustion limits. We had a great time going out and partying Euro, techno, dance-style and we even stole a lamp from the club. I tagged along with Andrew when he babysat Gurtz, Daniel´s 5-year-old son. Gurtz is an adorable kid who speaks no English but we managed to bond. We took Gurtz to a kid´s warehouse filled with jumping castles, trampolines, a super-sized McDonald´s playpen thing, soccer field/basketball court, and scooters galore. It was amazing and could be argued Andrew and I had more fun than Gurtz.

Mid-week I was off to Switzerland for some solo travels to let Andrew go to school and work in peace. I took an easy and direct three hour train ride to cold, rainy, and cloudy Interlaken. This town is an outdoorsmen´s paradise. There are tons of hiking and biking trails and an overall focus on outside activities. It´s like a Boulder or Tahoe.

I stayed in a dorm style hostel and managed to meet lots of fun people in the midst of their own adventures. I enjoyed Steve´s story. He was a dude who´d been laid-off, moped about it for a short time, got his ass in gear with a construction gig, saved, then hit the road until the money ran out. I loved that he didn´t just settle for something he didn´t want. He was presented lemons and made lemonade.

The temp sat around 8-10 degrees celcius while I was there and rained most of my first day. Because it was so cold, I felt less than motivated to participate in many of the water oriented activities (rafting, canyoning) in Interlaken. Instead, I chose to hike the whole place. I bussed out to and toured the St. Beatrus caves. Very cool. The huge Germany family that also toured was extremely loud, but it made me want to go to Karchner Caverns, right in my Tucson backyard which I have not yet done. I then hiked home, leisurely squeezing it into 3.5 hours. It was unfortunately cloudy so I could not see the epic Swiss Alps. The brief moments of cloudlessness provided some breathtaking glimpses of the mountains. I suppose I have to return.

I spent my Interlaken nights at the hostel´s basement club. It was loud but fun, overly populated by locals but fantastic people watching. The details are not important, but in summary, I played the role of self-proclaimed ordained minister for an American-Swiss wedding one night at the hostel. I pronounced them ¨International Man and Domestic Wife.¨ Sometimes, shit gets weird on the road.

While in Switzerland, I learned why the Swiss had created and mastered the multi-use pocket knife commonly known as a Swiss Army Knife: the Swiss need to get multiple uses out of everything because everything is so damn expensive in that country that you can´t afford to have 17 different tools. Holy smokes.

I returned to Freiburg for another futbol match and weekend with Andrew. This game was a friendly one and had nothing riding on it. However, it was the last game of the season and there would be free beer after the game. The catch - and it´s a brilliant one - is most people barely make it through the game to the free beer. You see, all the drinking is done before and during the game. By the time we arrived, I was far too many beers and mixed drinks in to continue drinking at the stadium; but I did anyway. It all makes sense now why whenever the home team scores, people go nuts and spill beers everywhere and all over one another: they´re simply getting rid of the beer they can´t drink anymore. Brilliant.

Freiburg won the game, 3-1, and will stay in the First League. It was an incredible atmosphere at the home stadium and is comparable to college football games; except their season is some 35-plus games long, not eleven.

We lazily worked through the rest of the day, revelling in the beauty of a sunny day and the Freiburg victory. The city trains were packed with excitable fans, chanting and singing their joy.

And so my time in Germany comes to an end. I have one day remaining in which Andrew and I are going to do some hiking and cook a giant international feast with some of his roommates. It´s then off to Paris and I-don´t-know-wherelse beyond that.

Happy Mother´s Day.

Adam Versus the Volcano: Throw Your Plans to the Wayside

The plan was going perfectly.

I had managed to seamlessly stay awake until my shuttle to the San Diego Airport arrived, I was prepared with food for my day´s travel, and the flights were on time. I immediately passed out between San Diego and Denver. Between Denver and Chicago I stayed awake, preparing to sleep the entire eight hours between O´Hare and Frankfurt.

Arrival in O'Hare was on time, if not early, and I had a neat 2.5 hours to sort my things, check in, grab some food, and prep for my flight over the Atlantic. Between terminals, I ran into my cousin, Akiva, who lives in London but was home in Chicago for Passover. He'd been stranded for a week between a combination of visa issues (which I could relate to) and volcano issues (which I soon could relate to). We ironically discussed how lucky we were to beat the volcano.

To that point, all signs were that I was going to cross the ocean, and Europe, no issues. AirIndia had said - despite their shoddy customer service - that the flight was a go.

When I finally arrived at the AirIndia ticketing/check-in counter, I noticed that the Departures board listed my flight as leaving at 1:00am, seven hours later than the original 4:05pm departure. That's OK, I thought, at least I'm going.

But once at the ticketing counter I was quickly told that the flight was canceled, given a photocopied letter listing the flights canceled for the day which was to help me get my refund, and a "good luck." AirIndia gave me no direction and no help in finding where/what/how to do anything from the cancellation forward.

I spent the next two hours frantically trying to figure things out. Should I try and latch on with another airlines? Lufthansa was taking other customers. Can I even do that? No, AirIndia would not release my ticket. Will Orbitz refund me? Yes. How much of my multiple carriers airfare will AirIndia refund me? TBD, with a 45 day average notice time. Should I fly to an unaffected European city? That day flights were costing upwards of $1500. Do I stay in Chicago? Go to New York? Philadelphia? DC? Ahhhhhhh!

I was beginning to lose my cool, patience, and head - I was on two one-hour naps rest and a bagel for sustenance. I was lost and with a shattered plan. I shot Jared, my buddy in Israel, an email to update him:

Flight to Germany was cancelled. Everythings changing. This is an adventure man!

As I punched the last sentence in, "This is an adventure man!" and tacked on the exclamation point, something changed. I immediately realized, it didn't matter if I wound up in Germany, India, New York, or Skokie, this was an adventure. Exactly what I'd signed up for.

So I talked, one last time, to AirIndia and they told me to call them Friday after noon for an update on their services to Frankfurt (I would eventually not even bother to make that call). I took the supervisors name and number, called my aunt and uncle for local housing, grabbed some McDonald's and I was off. Continuing my adventure, eagerly anticipating what would happen next.

What happened next? I spent six days in Chicago with my orthodox Jewish Aunt and Uncle; hung with my friend Matt who was in Chicago visiting my friend - his girlfriend - Katherine; visited with a work friend and discussed a possible job opportunity in San Francisco; and had an all around amazing time. Not to mention I made plans to visit Mara and Adrienne in DC then bus to NYC and Leah. I picked NYC as my final stop hoping the airfares would be cheaper from there and to give them time to lower. Not to mention the dissipation of volcanic ash.

I suppose it was karmic that I was stuck in the middle of an international flight crisis caused by a volcanic eruption. I was lucky to see a cloudless Arenal, Costa Rica's active volcano. It is covered in clouds some 75% of the year and on the one day that I visited, it was cloudless. I also saw lava flowing down the side of the volcano. I'd make that trade seven days a week and twice on Sunday.

My time in Chicago was amazing. I was "supposed" to be in Germany, right? I would soon come to discover that it was wrong. I was supposed to be exactly where I was; if for no other reason than I cannot think of another household where I could successfully borrow clothes that would fit me (all of my cousins are 6'3" or taller). Perfect.

But truthfully things unfolded perfectly in Chicago. Outside of the clothes miracle, I had an incredible opportunity to spend time with my cousins and learn and come to build a deeper understanding and respect for their religious beliefs. I had a great afternoon walking downtown Chicago with my cousin Shalom laying T'Fillin for various businessmen in the area. It was an incredible experience seeing these men, not orthodox, embrace and learn about their religion. It was also great to see my seventeen year old cousin in action. He's a charismatic and intelligent kid with an innate ability to brighten a day.

Seeing Matt in Chicago was another added treat; contributing to my realization that I was exactly where I was "supposed" to be. I hope I didn't over-stay any welcomes from Matt and Katherine (Matherine) but I certainly had a great time with them. Good friends.

From Chi-town I Southwested over to DC. Mara - the ever eloquent Angel that she is - exclaimed upon seeing me, "Oh my god. You're disgusting. I cannot look at you." She was likely referencing my face which had not been shaved since March 14. I somewhat wanted to, and was soon mandated to, get a haircut. My raging beard, queer travel pants, and running shoes stood out in stark contrast to the clean cut, popped collars, and Sperry Topsiders galore of Yuppi-ville, aka Georgetown.

Always a treat to see those DC, Lulu Lemon Clowns.

I bussed to New York, passing the smooth four hours with a new acquaintance, Laura, who was a Lulu Lemonite and friend of Mara's. It was nice to make a new friend and brought me back into the realization that I was in the middle of my big adventure.

Leah and I took in a comedy show my one night in The City and I took in Brooklyn my one day there. New York is certainly it's own, unique beast and always worth a visit.

And then finally, on Friday, April 30, I was on a flight to Frankfurt, Germany. The seat was small, miserably so, but I was on it and the adventure continued. On the theme of broken plans, I expected to sleep much of the flight; but with my knees into my chest and the uber-German reclining his chair in front of me, I instead passively watched romantic comedies and sit-coms for seven hours. No sleep.

If you read the sub-title to this blog, etched into the Arizona sunset, you'll realize that I specify no locations. Just that I'm on the move. Well I'm movin'. And if it sounds like a good idea to go over there, I'll check it out. And if something sounds fun, I'll go that way. And if a volcano blows up, I'll go this way.

Maybe my plan, in that context, is indeed going perfectly?