1 October

For a full list of all trip photos, click here. For more on the technical specs behind these photos, click here. For the text entry that accompanies these photos, click here.

Preflight. A shot from one of Chicago's far-north Blue Line el stations, making my way to O'Hare.

What if they built a doorway and a hallway never came? Man, that O'Hare can be creepy sometimes.

My plane, via the Air India airline. Buyer beware.

A final parting shot of the flat Chicago sky.

What flavor of chips are they? Why, 'American,' of course.

Here and below: random shots of the Atlantic Ocean, from 30,000 feet up.

For some reason our plane didn't pull up to a gate in Frankfurt but rather let us all out on the tarmac. Here is a picture of it from outside the plane.

Before this flight I had just seen the first episode of a new American television show called Lost; in it, a man is careless after an airplane wreck and gets sucked up into one of these giant jet turbines. Eek!

Eventually a couple of Germans in suits and yellow jackets showed up and started yelling at each other (of course). Then a shuttle bus was brought and we were all herded on board, after first checking all our names against the flight manifest at the door. Of course, no explanation was given.

Here and below: Shots of the tarmac as we make our ten-minute journey to the actual airport.

Outside the front main doors of the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof. This is what I look like after not sleeping for 36 hours and not eating for 36 hours either. Interestingly, after originally posting this at my site in real time during the actual trip, several readers wrote to say that I looked sexy. You sick bastards!

Next five photos: Random shots from the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (main train station), one of the busiest rail stations on the planet. Like most of the German Hauptbahnhofs, Frankfurt's seems to be under continual construction, which makes an already chaotic environment even more so.

Germans are pissed because in recent years the smoking policy at train stations has gone from "smoke anywhere you want" to "smoke in these designated sections only." As an American, I was amazed that you could smoke indoors in the first place, so loved the little "smoking stations" littered all throughout the public buildings there. Almost all trains still have a designated smoking car as well, although sometimes you come across a brand-new RegionalExpress that allows no smoking at all. The tide is turning everywhere in western Europe, now that the Americans have forged such a strong trail; get your last European puffing in now, because in ten years it'll be just as hard to smoke in public there as it is here in the States.

What greeted me at Dirk and Sonja's place, after my harrowing 40 hours traveling there: a delicious fish dish, cooked in a white wine sauce with potatoes, tomatoes and onions. Sehr gut, man - just what I needed.

Next three photos: Dirk and Sonja, my hosts for the first half of my Frankfurt days.

At the end of the meal Dirk and Sonja whipped out a bottle of vodka leftover from their last trip to Poland. It was very good and flavorful, but maybe not exactly the right thing for a guy who had been awake for the last 40 hours.

The bottle actually has Polish spring grass in it to help it retain its distinct flavor.

Two shots from Schuche's Restaurant, in the Praunheim district northwest of the city. This is like an American microbrewery (as in the liquor is made in the basement then sold upstairs), but for ebelwein instead of beer. (Ebelwein unfortunately gets translated most of the time into English as "apple wine," but Americans should think of it more like 'hard cider' than as any type of traditional wine. That is, if you don't want to find yourself schnockered off your ass by the end of the evening.)

We eventually went back and ate there later in the week - those photos can be found elsewhere.

Copyright 2004, Jason Pettus. All rights reserved. Although this material is presented here for your enjoyment free of charge, it is still illegal to repost this material without my permission, and especially so if you charge others money to see it. I am usually happy to let others reprint my work in the context of a free artistic publication, so please don't hesitate to contact me at ilikejason at hotmail dot com if you are interested in doing so.