Road Notes: What could have been a 3-hour direct flight was 36 hours of layover fun

1 PM - in a coffee shop in Frankfurt

I met the other Americans in my group leaving for Frankfurt early Monday morning. There were only five of us left – everyone else had either already gone home or were extending their stays. When we went to check in, there was a problem: I was the only one in the system with an e-ticket number; the other four were nowhere to be found. I suspect that I only had a number because I changed the second leg of my ticket to accommodate my trip to Georgia; in any event, the other four didn't end up getting on the plane. Hope everyone gets home alright.

On the plane a very ill young man and his wife sat in my row. I was nervous the whole trip because I was just waiting for him to barf (he had the bag at the ready the whole time), but luckily he didn't, and just slept most of the time. Still, all that recycled air – hope he wasn't contagious. Maybe he drank the water or something. Anyway, the flight was uneventful, I stored my carry-on at the airport, totally got ripped off exchanging my last thousand rubles (I shouldn't have done it. I should have just kept them and exchanged them for lari in Batumi instead of for TEN FREAKING EURO. That was like thirty bucks when it came out of my account!), and found my way onto the train into town.

The first couple hours of the morning I sat outside at a cafe and read a book in Russian. Then I wandered around for a while. Frankfurt is so.... western! It's so clean, and the sidewalks are all even and maintained, and there are bicycles everywhere. People are friendly – they smile at you for no reason; I crossed in front of a car and waved thanks, and the driver waved back instead of speeding up to try and hit me... Being here sort of blows my mind. Also sort of weird, there are a lot of sex shops and peep shows scattered in among the coffee shops and designer clothing stores. But mostly what Germany has done for me so far is to make me feel like I don't belong anywhere. I realize how accustomed I've become to the nitty-gritty of living in Russia, and in a way I'm glad I'll be going back to that in Georgia. This western Europe thing is strange. It's hard to explain exactly what I'm feeling. I think it's a feeling of “People here just don't know how good they have it. They go around in their fashionable but relaxed clothes and buy their not-shitty coffees and work in offices for decent wages, and just a three-hour plane ride away it's a completely different world.” And now I feel like I'm a product of the western world that's aware of the uniqueness of what we have, which makes me uncomfortable in that world. At least for the moment. Luckily for me, I'll be back in Batumi in 22 hours.

4:00 PM - waiting in the Frankfurt airport

I'm being serenaded by a Turk with a guitar in the Frankfurt airport. It's quite enjoyable. Makes me wish I smelled better. This shirt is NOT fresh.

It's nice to think there's less than 24 hours left in my journey now. I'm glad I got out and walked around Frankfurt a bit; it really helped pass the time. Also, lucky for me some people speak English here, because seriously, I would not have been able to figure out which train to take to get back to the airport. Um, DUH, next time I go somewhere, I should at least know the word for “airport” in the local language.

It's extremely comforting to hear Russian in the airport sometimes. My ears strain for it; every foreign language becomes Russian until I notice I don't understand anything and admit to myself, “Oh, that's German. Or Japanese. Or Turkish.” It's nice when, occasionally, it actually IS Russian.

Rats, my serenading Turk doesn't speak English or Russian! Probably is a good thing, otherwise I'd have to stave off advances at least through boarding and possibly through the flight. Although a little conversation wouldn't kill me. I swear, I only write so much when I travel because I need to say something to someone, even if it's just a notebook.

6:00 AM - 9:00 AM - Istanbul

Wow, before we took off, my musician found me and gave me his email and facebook. Wow. After the flight, we were on the same shuttle and chatted a bit in very limited English. I found out he's a professional actor and singer and was in Frankfurt for four days to sing at a festival or concert or something like that. Neat.

Last night I flew in over this city in the dark for the second time this year. It's gorgeous at night; someday I'd love to get the heck out of the transit terminal and actually SEE the city.

I drank coffee after dinner on the plane, so to help burn off energy and pass part of my 12-hour layover, I put my stuff on a cart and walked laps around the terminal for about an hour. With my iPod, it wasn't that bad. Then I found a bench and slept for about four hours, waking up every hour or so. It was freezing.

At four-ish I got up, too cold to stay any longer, and got a big cup of coffee and a huge but dry chunk of walnut bread. A man from Israel who now lives in Spain struck up a conversation with me. At first my brain was too fuzzy to engage, but he was actually quite interesting. We talked a little about politics, about Turkey, the role of the US in the world, and how people's relationship with money belies their relationship with themselves. We talked so long that only at 5:45 did he realize that boarding for his flight started at 5:15. Hope he made it!

Then I spent about half an hour in the bathroom changing clothes and cleaning up. This, apparently, turned me into Turk-attracting goddess, because a security guard who said hi to me last night asked me for coffee when his shift got over at 8! I declined, but what the heck - that's two Turks in 12 hours, neither of whom speaks English. Strange I'm not attracting anyone I could at least talk to.