We made it but I’ll tell you direct Tokyo- Frankfurt in the cattle car is brutal, even if it is a Lufthansa cattle car.( Any airliner that serves Warsteiner beer and does not charge for it, cannot be all bad…..). Its now 6 am saturday and I am slept out. I’ve been in bed since 8 last night and it only took about 2 pilsner sleeping pils to get there.
A few random observations from the trip so far:
Russia is a BIG country. The aircraft spent most of the flight over Russian airspace and I think that was a lot more time than a TYO-SFO leg would be…….
My high school German teacher and Lt Col Grundel, my Hungarian born, German college professor, would be shocked to know that I actually learned something. And Colonel, I acknowdledge publicly that you were right and my 19 year old self was wrong, I should have stuck through your classes for all 4 years of my experience at my beloved alma mater. However you can take satisfaction in knowing that your lessons actually did take hold in my small brain and I can actually read the paper and understand the spoken German here pretty well. Thank you for being good teachers and forcing language drills on me……
Speaking of language, I love being finally in a situation where the S.O. does not have the upper hand when it comes to reading signs, or menus, or even watching TV. I can tell she hates that. That may be the most fun of this entire trip……
Its clear I hit a nerve by supporting Chuck Hagel in my last post. Good. I still agree with James Webb about Iraq. While clearly, there are poltitical undertones to the current discussion about Iraq in Congress, I also think it underscores something I have believed for a long time, the President has only about 9 more months of public patience on the war to rely on and that 2006 will have to show some REAL Iraqification of the security effort or things will be very noisy domestically. Yesterdays news about bombings does not bode well……
Its also clear that, with better leadership the Democrats could actually be making some legitimate points. John Dean and Harry Reid are not it……….neither is Hillary. Its interesting that it is responsible Republicans who are making the best and most coherent arguements on the war today. Democratic rhetoric is just making the right wing have to work less hard. If they had some decent leadership, they could actually win some elections………..
It’s cold as you know what here………
Finally, cold or not Germany is cool……Hopefully will have som pix to post in a couple of days……..
Skippy-san
