Zwolf Uhr layover

Bicycles everywhere. Cobblestone streets. Metrosexual men sporting square glasses. Cars so tiny youre afraid youll up-end them if you are not careful. Fashion so bad that you want to fall eyeball first into a bed of nails. Yes, damen und herrun, welcome to Germany. En route to Riga, I find myself in Frankfurt, the economic and bellyfat powerhouse of Germany and, hence, the European Union. I have been flying Lufthansa, which serves free beer and wine to all passengers and is therefore the greatest airline in the world.

It took me for-fing-ever to find this internet kafe, mostly because theres little need for them in heavily networked countries like Deutschland. This place is a scream because they are playing late 60s/early 70s country music so old that I'm shocked it ever made it to CD. Think Buck Owens, Marty Robbins, Red Foley and Jerrz Reed (okay, one thing I had forgotten about these damn keyboards in German-speaking countries is that they have the 'y' and 'z' kezs switched!!) Damned annozing.

There is something charming about a culture that is so incredibly uncool that there's really no hope for them, and I think they know it. Even the black dudes and asian girls here are uncool. One interesting thing, I don't think I really need to see Willy Wonka because I've been living it for five hours already. And for someone who was allegedly fluent in German in graduate school, I don't know what the hell these people are saying, with their spit and their crazy verbs at the end of the sentence. Maybe it's because I've been awake for somewhere between 14 and 28 hours (I'm having trouble with the conversions at the moment).

One last funny thing... I've already broken the law in Europe because I've been riding the subway free all day and just realized a little while ago that you're supposed to pay for it beforehand.

These Germans are just too cute with their honor code.