1st Day

I'm still not ready, but here we go.  Don't expect very much.  I have so little to report.  I cannot give you all the details and stay within my protective cocoon.  I had duties and could not be too much myself, though some of that is unfortunately unavoidable, inevitable.  And so. . . .

Crowded, bright airports.  Eating that food on hard seats, though in truth, much of that has gotten better.  Four of us try to make pleasantries, a piano player in a faux-lounge in the food court of Atlanta's airport.  We sit too long, then hurry to be the very last ones to board the plane.

Too small these seats, smaller than might be acceptable for a domestic flight.  Small plane, four seats across.  No center aisle.  Delta.  It gets worse.  We take what passes for a meal on plastic trays, plastic everything, plastic food.  I prepare.  A pill and some wine, a neck pillow and a mask mitigate the misery, barely.  A night flight spent dozing, waking, the jet's humming, the air's loud whisper.  Sleeping at just under a right angle, nightmares of evil seat designers, viscous airline executives who will never fly coach.  Only the drug can begin to palliate the outrage.

Munich.  We stumble around the Marienplatz, the open courtyards, the cafes, the shops.  It is gray, damp.  We take a train to the college district, sit for lunch.  A bright companion falls dead asleep, head on table. The waitress is more beautiful than a movie star or a cover model, small, perfect features scowling.  Americans.  She takes my order with disdain.  A lovely punishment.

We make our way through the gloomy day, back through the railway station, to our small hotel rooms now ready.  Two o'clock, two-thirty.  The rooms are neat and bare.  We sleep.