-- By Tom Phillips
I hadn't meant to go back to Germany so soon after my first visit last year, but Pakistan and India are playing games of "gotcha" again, and the Paks closed their airspace the day I was to fly. At least that's what United Airlines told me, so I wound up flying a different route, with a twelve-hour layover in Frankfurt Airport.
Last year's Tour of Fear cured me of my Germanophobia, convincing me that the Germans have done a much better job of repenting for their past crimes than we in the US. But nothing prepared me for just how comfortable I felt among the end-of-summer German holiday crowd in Frankfurt.
No people resembles America so much as the Germans. They look like us, move like us, clump together in teams and groups like us, laugh like us, dress like us, drink beer and eat hot dogs like us. All this stuff they've been doing longer than we have. Because in many ways, they are us.
Many Americans are surprised to learn that Germans are the biggest immigrant group in America. That's because they just "look like Americans." but of course the only true Americans are Indians, who look like Asians, and for some reason there aren't that many Indians around any more.
In New York, I can spot almost any foreign tourist as not-American, including the Brits who walk and talk differently, colonial history notwithstanding. But Germans could be Americans until they start to spout German, and most of them speak near-perfect American English as a second language.
The only consistent behavioral difference between us and them is neatness. German girls look American down to the logos on their clothes, but their jeans are never "distressed" and their hair is only rarely. It's not cool to look poor in a country so recently in ruins.
Of course all this goes deeper than style, but style was all I was able to take in in twelve hours at the airport. I came, I saw, I traveled on. Next stop on the Road to Dotage -- Delhi.
-- Copyright 2019 by Tom Phillips
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| Frankfurt Airport |
Last year's Tour of Fear cured me of my Germanophobia, convincing me that the Germans have done a much better job of repenting for their past crimes than we in the US. But nothing prepared me for just how comfortable I felt among the end-of-summer German holiday crowd in Frankfurt.
No people resembles America so much as the Germans. They look like us, move like us, clump together in teams and groups like us, laugh like us, dress like us, drink beer and eat hot dogs like us. All this stuff they've been doing longer than we have. Because in many ways, they are us.
Many Americans are surprised to learn that Germans are the biggest immigrant group in America. That's because they just "look like Americans." but of course the only true Americans are Indians, who look like Asians, and for some reason there aren't that many Indians around any more.
In New York, I can spot almost any foreign tourist as not-American, including the Brits who walk and talk differently, colonial history notwithstanding. But Germans could be Americans until they start to spout German, and most of them speak near-perfect American English as a second language.
 |
| Neatness |
Of course all this goes deeper than style, but style was all I was able to take in in twelve hours at the airport. I came, I saw, I traveled on. Next stop on the Road to Dotage -- Delhi.
-- Copyright 2019 by Tom Phillips
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