Hopefully, Customs Will Let Us Back In

We just flew over the southern tip of Greenland, and I could not stop staring out the window at the wonder of it all.

Yes, I’m a geek.  What's your point?

Greetings from 33,000 feet above the North Atlantic, where we’re on the second leg of our journey home.  Getting up in Berlin at 3 am this morning (or, as I mentioned yesterday, 9 pm last night Marquette time) was a joy, But we weren’t the only ones who were able to enjoy it.  The 4:27 am train out to the Berlin airport was packed, the airport itself was packed, security was packed…

Well, you get the idea.

As I mentioned on the first “Life in the 906” I did for 19 News this past Monday I really do get a window seat on the right hand side of the plane every time we fly back.  Not only do I get to geek our over Greenland (at least on days like today when the cloud cover allows) but soon I’ll be able to see the first signs of North America, as we fly over the Labrador coast.  Then an  hour and a half later we enter US airspace right over Sault Ste, Marie, and an hour or so after that we’re back on land in Chicago.

I often think of my Irish or my German ancestors who had to spend days (if not weeks) on a ship to come to the US, and then more days or weeks of overland travel just to get to a place like Chicago.  Now, I get to fly from Europe to that city in eight hours.

I wonder what THEY would think?

Okay.  I promised you two more stories from Leipzig, and here they are.  As you may recall, the first day we were here I may have gone off in a small rant about how I couldn’t find a cow calendar anywhere.  Well, Saturday, as we were off buying handschuhe for the soccer match, we came across a wall of stuffed animals-

If you look at it you’ll see everything from a stuffed dog to a stuffed horse to a stuffed penguin to a stuffed (and I’m not kidding here) meerkat.  But you know what you don’t see?

A stuffed cow.

I’m not quite sure what Leipzig has against cows; for a city with otherwise impeccable tastes they sure do let you down that way.  So if (and I’m  thinking this isn't gonna happen, but you never know) Leipzig sends me one of those “please rate your experience with us” surveys that  everyone wants you to fill out these days, I will give them a “10” in almost every single category.

They get a “0”, though, when they ask a question about cows.

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the name Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; he was an 18th century German poet, philosopher, writer, and scientist, as well as the occasional butt of a Woody Allen joke.  Now, despite everything that Goethe did in his long life, I really don’t think he had anything to do with chocolate, which makes the name of this chocolate bar rather interesting–

And well as the name of this totally unrelated chocolate shop–

Kinda strange.  The chocolate bar was dark, and many of the chocolates sold in the totally unrelated shop were of the darker variety, as well, so maybe the chocolateers were just using the Goethe name as a subtle commentary on the bleakness of human existence.

Or maybe they just thought it sounded cool.  I think either way might be valid.

Oh, and Goethe Chocolateers also had some amazing gelato.  Mine (the white one) is honey lavender, while Loraine’s (the other one) is chocolate chili.

I guess with gelato like that things can't be too bleak, can they?

Before we wrap this trip up I have a few more pictures to share, ones that haven’t made it in here yet.  Pictures like…..

How a lot of people seem to get from here to there in Berlin–

A random beer bottle left on the street in Leipzig–

Garbage that you might see anywhere in the US, but is a rather bizarre sight when you come across it in Germany-

What I probably SHOULD have bought Friday at the market instead of that 23,000,000 calorie Quarktorte–

And maybe, just maybe, a sign that the person who wrote the copy for this refrigerator magnet didn’t have the best command of English.  Either that, or they just have a highly refined sense of the absurd–

Well, that’s it for this time around. I have no idea when we’ll be doing it again, but when we do, you can always come along.  And I also have to once again mention how this all would not have been possible without the stellar work Loraine puts into sticking these voyages together.  It’s not an easy job, despite how she makes it look, and you better believe that any credit at all for how it turned out is hers and her alone.

Loraine rocks!

Have a great next few days, everyone.  I’m on the radio tomorrow, I’m shooting the first episode of “High School Bowl” for the season Friday morning, and then I’m collapsing into a heap of goo for the few days after that.

Well, maybe collapsing after I unpack all the chocolate we picked up.  Some things ARE more important than rest, after all.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)