It's been about 12 hours since my last missive (I think... I've kind of lost track of time), and in the interim, I've made a few observations and crossed Europe into Asia.
First things first. I spent most of the day relaxing in the Lufthansa lounge in Frankfurt, enjoying the free drinks (yes, Germans do drink beer at 8 a.m.) free sausages (yes, you can eat too many sausages in one day), and the free shower.
Speaking of overdoing it, one can also oversleep in a Lufthansa lounge, as I discovered. "Oh, I'll just close my eyes for a minute," I thought, noting that I had at least two hours before my flight departed. Next thing I knew, it was 10 minutes past the boarding time and five minutes until departure. Holy shit... I had to book it across the airport and was the *last* person to make my gate. Missing that flight would have been *embarrassing*!
During my stay in the lounge, I noticed a few things:
The Lufthansa lounge is incredibly busy and jam-packed. No empty seats. A wait for the showers. A line for the bathroom (even the men's bathroom).
And while we're on the topic of bathrooms, the lounge features toilets that I'm pretty sure were inspired by The Exorcist. Upon flushing, the seat begins to rotate 360 degrees as a faucet extends from the tank to clean it. It's both awesome and frightening. I'd hate to accidentally flush the toilet prematurely, you know?
What's with all service employees wearing latex gloves? I'm not talking about food handlers... I mean people who are cleaning tables and such? I don't get it. Just wash your hands. It's not like latex gloves have some magical properties to prevent germs from spreading. Furthermore, if you don't change the gloves, they're no different than your hands.
As most people know, I'm a Mac geek. For years, Mac geeks would wander in the wilderness, only occasionally seeing a fellow geek in the wild. These days, though, glowing Apples are everywhere, as are iPads, iPhones and the rest of the Apple lot. It's pretty cool.
Speaking of iPads, an older married couple was sitting next to each other, each with an iPad in their laps. They were each playing solitaire. Just sayin'.
I also noticed a few features of the average German (at least, the average German in a Lufthansa lounge:
Athletic build
Crazy Beethoven hair
Tweed/Corduroy jacket
Shirt tucked into jeans
