A Six Hour Night: My Transit to Germany

I left for Germany from Logan Airport on the afternoon of Friday, August 17th.  The first flight was a six hour crossing of the Atlantic Ocean to Dublin, Ireland, where I would the board a plane bound for Frankfurt, Germany.  After this two hour flight, I would ride the ICE high speed train for a thirty minute sprint from Frankfurt to Mannheim, my final destination.

During the first flight, I began reading Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time to pass the hours.  It is quite an interesting book and very fitting for the mood of a transcontinental flight, where the sun seems to race around the Earth, warping one's perception of time.  The man sitting next to me, also a fan of Hawking's book, was a professor from the Berklee College of Music, who was visiting his daughter for her marriage in Ireland.  While the short night continued on, I decided that rather than sleep, I would watch Hunger Games on the airplane's entertainment screen.  The movie was decently exciting and had a good premise, but the borderline epileptic shaky-cam and the deadpan faced actors made it a mediocre show in my opinion.  With the Katniss's rivals all dead and the movie wrapped up, I finally arrived in Dublin, the land of my heritage.

Walking through the Dublin airport was an interesting experience.  As I passed the security gate from the city, I was amazed at how odd it feels to be in a country where almost everyone looks like they are related to you.  After about an hour and a half layover I boarded to plane to Frankfurt.

This second flight was almost empty; I had an entire row to myself.  This was the first time on my trip where the people around me were all speaking German. While I can pick out many individual words, I am not yet proficient enough in the language to understand what people are saying when they are talking among themselves. It is definitely a strange feeling to be surrounded by only people who are speaking a foreign language that you cannot understand.  It is a bit overwhelming, but I feel that it is the best way to learn.

After arriving in Frankfurt, I tried to order a ticket to Mannheim in German.  I got a smile, a ticket, and a reply in English.  Ticket in hand, I rushed to catch the train, and after thirty minutes of the best in high speed rail travel, I stepped out into the Mannheim Hauptbanhof on Saturday, August 18th at 10:30 AM.