We were not supposed to be there. Frankfurt Germany. One of those odd airline mishaps I so often find myself in. Been traveling to such and such and encountered a plane delay. No flights today. A bomb had pushed itself up through the soil on the edge of the runway and it needed some looking into. It is not what you think. It was a WWII bomb that had been hidden for years and resurfaced. This presented the airport with two problems. 1. How to deactivate a WWII bomb and 2. This bomb was now a historical artifact, a piece of history and needed to be saved. The airline put "he and I" up in a hotel for the rest of the day and night. I don’t think it matters what city or country you are in, airport hotels though comfortable and nice are all kind of the same. Not interested in spending the rest of the day watching German TV "he and I" made our way into Frankfurt proper. I was very comfortable with European Mass transit and did not even consider it would be a problem. But it was….
I had saved a few of my spoils from Amsterdam and "he and I" decided to enjoy them en route. Found ourselves at the subway station to purchase tickets and realized how much we were in over our heads. I stared at that ticket machine, he stared at the ticket machine, pushed some random buttons. Nothing on that machine was of any use in helping us, no diagrams, no color coded maps, no words of English. Just random codes. He and I were barely in a position to ask for help. Someone took pity on us put some money in the machine handed us two tickets and we flashed that universal thank you smile. Hopped on a train. It was nice. "He and I" were in that Amsterdam state of mind. I sat down and settled into him. Quiet, the colors were more defined, everything was brighter in a pleasant sort of way, the sounds a little more distinct, houses flashed by as we went from neighborhood to neighborhood to inner city where we disappeared into subway tunnels. It was nice looking out that train window.
Frankfurt is really kind of a nothing-spectacular place. Most of it was destroyed in WWI and WWII. It is very modern and post 1950. "He and I" walked, had a bite to eat, had a coffee. By chance we came upon one little pocket of “Old Germany”. One little area that had not been destroyed by war. It seemed kind of out of place. Disney had come along and tried to give the place a little charm. Again in that Amsterdam state of mind "he and I" decided to make our way back to our room. Frankfurt was checked off my list. Kind of one of those “been there, done that, scene that” experiences. I feel no need to revisit. It clearly has nothing to offer me. Found a subway station and again we were more than lost. Levels of trains and tunnels and signs everywhere. Lit up like high noon with the brightest fluorescent lights know to man and white tiles. We wandered pretty much aimlessly for a good 30 minutes before we decided to sit for a while and study a map. That is when “the man” came along.
The man sat down next to "he and I" and started talking. Said he wanted to practice his English. I don’t know what the man’s story was. He could have been homeless or not. His clothes were a bit worn and dirty but I think mine were too. And I was not homeless. At least I was pretty sure I wasn’t. Things were a little dicey when I left. Sometimes you never know what you’re walking into until you open the door. That is another story. The man started talking about Genesis. Asked if we mind talking about Genesis. This is the funny part. The three of us had a 20-minute conversation together all talking about something completely different and yet our questions and responses and interactions worked. "I" thought the man was talking about Star trek. The movie where Spock dies and then comes back to life on the planet the Star trek crew built and termed the Genesis Project. "He" thought the man was having a biblical discussion with us and it turns out the man was really talking about Phil Collins and his band Genesis. You have to understand this...when the man said him, I thought he meant Spock, my "he" thought it meant God and the man really meant Phil Collins and then we kept going form there. Then the man got kind of pissed off at us. "He and I" started laughing when we realized what was going on and the man thought the laughter was at him. I promise it wasn't. He left with an attitude and shuffled away. Back to task at hand, "he and I" did make it on a train and somehow willed it to be the one that went where "he and I" were going.
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