Pregnant Ang texted the other day in her typically unique way of updating me in the progress of their Belgium/Germany/France tour, but this one was my favorite. She’s still enjoying the travails of morning sickness, and knowing my history with the airport at Frankfurt-am-Main, she wrote:
“I’m getting to vomit on Germany. A lot.”
Pity? No. Not first anyway. Envy. I never got to vomit on it. From now on, whenever I do vomit, I sense I’ll be thinking of exactly what I would be – in an ideal situation – vomiting on.
I know she was giggling with self-delight as she sent that, knowing I would want to hug her out of sheer love. How could I not appreciate antagonism, sentiment, and biology all rolled into one deadpan sentence?
Background:
My first trip to Europe was to stay with Ang just outside Venice for the spring, or forever, depending. (It was not forever. Le sigh, or…il sigho.) My layover was in Germany, specifically at Frankfurt-am-Main – the German city so fond of sending letter bombs to America at the millennium. That was apparently for a reason, and one quite heart-felt. Without going into the eyeball-squeezing details, this layover was drawn out eventually over 18 hours, with the promise of exit being renewed roughly every two hours. At some point I sat down on the floor next to my luggage and cried, more a cry of an American having to fake an Eastern European accent in order to not be lied to than of, say, someone in hiding behind the wall of a secret room, so I guess I have that to be grateful for. It’s all about perspective afterall, isn’t it? At another point, I got into a minor altercation with some Schweinhund who seemed to have felt verbally flogging all those in line with perfectly lame jokes would wear us down, much like POWs, and he could jump in front of me in line, aber nein. Luckily, growling is an effective universal communication. Growling in German…just feels f-ing liberating, too, when you’re really pissed. Speaking of, after a time, I’d taken to mentally shouting when going to the bathroom, “I piss you on Germany! Uh! I piss on you!”
Hence Angie’s text. Only she’s outdone herself. I’ll have to create a human being in order to match this one. (Another time, thanks.)
To Germany? It’s sure to push me over the edge. Let’s do it!
No, someday I will, and just avoid that city. Munich has an airport and that’s where some of the cousins are anyway, so someday. And Berlin sounds truly fascinating in the best sense of art and militant efficiency uniting. Someday Germany, someday we’ll meet again.
And Angie, you are beautiful, bella mia!
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