The Zs and Ys have returned to their proper locations, the people on the street no longer speak proper English, and I had like a six-gallon Coke loaded with ice from a drive through. I must be back in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

So when we last spoke, I had struck out on a second attempt to buddy pass home from Copenhagen to Atlanta. Two fellow buddy-passers (each of whom had been trying to get out of Copenhagen since Tuesday) and I had banded together and bought tickets to Berlin where we heard Delta flights home might be more available. The picture shows Sevgi (the happy one from Turkey), Nancy (the tired of three days in the airport one from Sweeden), and some freakishly tall American dude looming over them. We staked out some comfortable chairs in a relatively quiet area of the Copenhagen airport and settled in for the seven-hour wait for the Berlin flight.

At some point it occurred to Sevgi that it would be a good idea to use the downtime to sort out her visa issue. She tried to leave Denmark one day before her visa was set to expire and failed, then again the next day and failed. Now she was one day late, and a bit worried they might give her a hard time about it. She left us for an hour or so, eventually coming back for her bags and saying "its bad, I've got to go, I'll explain later." Ninety minutes after that she returned and told us goodbye, and she had to run off right away, and they were ordering her to Frankfurt, and she'd email us when she could. We haven't heard from her since. She may be locked up in Spandau prison for all we know.

So seven rolled around and Nancy and I flew to Berlin's Templehof airport. I don't want to say its a small, backwards kind of airport, but this was the view from the tarmac as we walked from our plane toward the terminal. Yes, its a biplane. We were in fact the last flight in for the night, and when we left the terminal (one room the size of a college gymnasium) the airport was smoothly ceasing operations for the night. At 8pm. On the brightside, they put us in row 17 A&B on the plane. It was the first good omen since the standby ordeal began.

Lo! The second good omen! I booked a hotel for 45 euro a night, assuming it was going to be a complete dive. Instead the room turned out to have 15 foot ceilings, art all over the walls, a nice tv, a big living room, a functioning pre-WW2 glass bottle coke vending machine in the hallway, and it was half a block from friggin Leinbnizstrasse! Things were clearly looking up.

So after one last currywurst in the Berlin airport, we managed to succesfully standby and get on a plane to JFK (and in business class no less). Here we celebrate as the plane pulls away from the gate and the flight attendants bring us our first mimosas. Also, I manage to take a picture that lends itself to a little brainteaser. Would you blame Scott the photographer or Scott the photographee for how bad I look in this picture? Discuss amongst yourselves; there's no wrong answer.

So we made it to New York. For me that's 90% of the battle, since I can stay with my aunt and uncle on Long Island indefinitely. Nancy on the other hand was desperate to get back to Jacksonville, Florida (her place of permanent residence for the last three years). She's overdue for her job (she should have just quit) and late for picking up a bridesmaid's dress for a wedding next Saturday. We investigated options at JFK as best we could, eventually deciding that crashing with my family for a night was the best choice.

So that's how Nancy from Sweeden ended up at my cousin Eric's baseball game, probably pretty much the last thing in the world she intended when she woke up four days ago to fly out of Copenhagen. She actually seemed to enjoy the game, asking the right questions and by the end clapping at the right times. She said its simillar to the Sweedish game of bronball (umlaat over the o... how I miss keyboards that come with umlauts and euro signs...), which is a game that I don't ever recall coming up in that whole English/American cricket/townball/stickball/Cartwright/Doubleday debate.

Here Eric takes a mighty hack and grounds one to the left side. He had better swings, but I'm posting this one because I timed the photo better. Certainly more important to make myself look good than the subject of the photograph. Perhaps this explains the busisess class photo of myself... Anywho, Eric was the starting pitcher for Port Washington. He gave up single runs in the first and second, largely due to some shaky defense behind him. He settled down though, and in the top of the sixth he blew away the opposition's best hitter on a full-count fastball to strand three runners and keep Port in the game at 2-1. Unfortunately, he labored in the seventh and the game got away from the home team. It was their Heimspeil, but they just couldn't make it real.

So now I'm going to take a real American shower and then Nancy and I are off to the greatest nost magical happy land in all the world, New York City! She's never been, so we're going to try to see as much as possible before I put her on a Greyhound and send her to Florida. As for me, I'm going to hang out here in New York for a bit and sort out my travel options for getting home to the 404. In the meantime, Manhattan is calling. See ya!

'Cause everyone's your friend in New York City
And everything looks beautiful when you're young and pretty
The streets are paved with diamonds and there's just so much to see
But the best thing about New York City is you and me!

posted by Scott @ 7/01/2006 12:03:00 PM || 5 comments