Notes from 19 September I

Notes from 19 September
I was supposed to be home 5 days ago. Funny how things work out or don’t. Other than the fact that I’ve been away from home, I can’t complain about the last few days. On Monday night, I capitulated to my western-ness and went to a Irish pub (run by an authentic Irishman) near the Golden Gate for some good steak and chips. While I was there, I got to talking to a Londoner who used to be in the oil business (and traveled quite a lot) but has lived in Ukraine for the last 9 years. Our conversation ranged far and wide, but of course eventually touched on the terrorist attacks. I was very interested to hear his thoughts on things as an admitted outsider, but one with a global perspective.

He made a few observations about American culture that were uncomfortable to hear, but which I know to be true nonetheless. For a very long time, Americans have mainly looked inward from our borders. If we gave notice of the outside world it has been limited to a glance unless our citizens were involved. Usually then, once our involvement ended, our view turned inward again. This has pervaded at least our education and politics, and perhaps our business practice as well. To pick just one example, our lack of emphasis on seeing that children learn other languages has the ramification that it is more difficult to then learn about other cultures. We insist that the games be played by our rules [perhaps because we don’t understand, and can’t, as a culture, be bothered to understand the rules others use]. We wear sunglasses when we look at world events.

I left Kiev as planned on Tuesday, but didn’t make my connecting flight in Frankfurt. The flight was an hour late getting into Kiev, and landed about 25 minutes late in Frankfurt. All transit passengers were sent through another security checkpoint before being allowed to proceed to the departure gates. The queue to the security checkpoint was long and slow and they didn’t prioritize the order of people. Even though my flight was to leave in 20 minutes, I was not allowed to jubp the line. Of course it left without me and about 10 others from Kiev. Lufthansa did put us up for the night.
Today, I went through no less 4 checks. I left plenty of time to get through, and today the lines moved very quickly. So I arrived at my gate with 3.5 hours to kill before departure. I’ve filled the time by watching. All arriving international flights, no matter how big the plane, are unloaded not through the jetways, but down stairs to busses. Presumable these people are then sent through security again. Did you know that the cockpit windows of an Airbus A-340 can be opened? An airport employee washes the exterior of the cockpit windows by opening one and leaning outside with a squeegee. It is quite an intricate dance they operate here. The concession stands now list prices in Euros (January 2002 the currencies are replaces), and Deuech Marks. They accept payment in Marks and Dollars. Do the major international airports in the U.S. accept other currencies at concession stands?

Let it be said for all time that laptops are not ideally sized for use on aircraft. At least not in steerage.