Ich Bin Ein Frankfurter!

You can’t fly directly from Texas to Ghana. You have to stop somewhere else first. Our first hop was to Frankfurt. I won't tell you which airline but here's a hint: they had Warsteiner! Stepping on board the plane was like stepping into a kiln. The announcer told us that the A/C was out and they were working on it! I was afraid it would be hot the whole way but by the time we were on our way the cabin had started to cool. It’s fine now. And yes, cold Warsteiner had helped.

I watched a German movie on the in-flight system called Friendship! (The exclamation point is part of the title, not an expression of my enthusiasm.) It’s a typical teen road trip movie. It’s set in 1989, and after the Berlin Wall falls, two friends from East Germany go on quest to San Francisco. They only have enough money to make it to New York, and they decide to hitchhike the rest of the way. It takes them two weeks and they have some crazy adventures on their way. It got me to thinking about my own trip to Ghana. I have been on the plane now for 3 and a half hours and we are already over Goose Bay in the far northeast corner of North America, crossing the threshold of land to sea as we soar above the Atlantic at 600 mph. From the time the driver picked me up at my house to the time I land in Ghana, less than 24 hours will have passed. You know the timeworn expressions. Getting there is half the fun. It’s not the destination; it’s the journey. Choose your preferred cliché. They’re clichés because they’re often true. That’s what road trip movies are all about. So I am trying to decide whether I am missing out on The Journey. Before flight, before cars, how many weeks, even months, would it have taken to get from Texas to Ghana? How many people would you meet? How many towns would you see? I am certain that we would have some adventures travelling by land and sea rather than by air. But I am not such a romantic as to think it would have been all wonder and stargazing. I’m sure on long voyages the days grow longer and longer until they become interminable. Without doubt, I am travelling with more efficiency and comfort than our forebears would have. But at what cost? Shall I now regale you with stories of how they had to reboot the in-flight entertainment system?

Ah well. I do have one interesting tidbit for you. You should know that there are four of us travelling together to work on three related projects. I saw one of them waving at someone he knew. I looked over and recognized this individual from law school! It turns out he’s an engineer for the company that we are doing the work for, and he is headed to Ghana too. Small world! If anyone from law school is reading and wondering who it is, it’s the Benelux guy who’s named after a ghost…

Unfortunately we were only in Frankfurt long enough to go through security and power-walk to the other gate for our connection. We settled in on the second flight, and I noticed that the CGI character the airline uses for the inflight videos looks a little like Edward the vampire. See for yourself. The flight to Accra, Ghana wasn’t too interesting except we crossed the Sahara. I was in a seat in the middle section of the plane with no window access but I peeked out a couple of times. There wasn’t much to see but a vast brown featureless landscape. I watched more German shows. German films appear to be quite distracted with post-war Berlin and the fall of the Berlin wall. I get it, but it seems like if you took those topics away, none of the shows I saw would have had anything to talk about.

Next post: Ghana!