Adventures In Teutonia-Land
A brief chronicle of my first wandering to the Continent:

Day 1 (June 16): Nearly an entire 24 hour period waiting for airplanes to arrive and waiting to land. Shuttled across to Philadelphia Airport and then was layed over for about 8 hours. All airports look the same. There was a little bit of excitement while sitting in the terminal though. I was seated across from 3 twenty-something-looking Germans who must've been on their way back from the States. At one point the smallest of the three pulled out an unopened back of chips (looked somewhat like pork-rinds, but I didn't recognize the brand). The second largest fellow began to take offense, and then slapped the smaller one. All at once, a rabid fist-fight ensued while they both sat in their adjacent terminal seats. There was slapping, that transitioned to punching, a bite and what looked to be an Amazing Beckham-like feat of a head-kick delivered entirely from the seated position. When it seemed like nothing would stop them but First Blood, the largest of the three wrapped his arms around the 2nd guy to try to defuse the situation. There was still a few stray lunges thrown and the whole thing was ended when a security door alarm went off and they calmlz ceased, probably fearing retaliation from the American Gestapo. I can only guess that the origin of the quarrel was over the contested ownership of the bag of chips, but I may never be certain.

Day 2: June 18: After (finally) landing in Munich (the first leg of the trip) I was impressed by the clean, bright and well-designed terminals at the Munchen Airport. The automatic doors were nearly-silent and the information terminals spoke English (thank the prophets). I then took the U-Bahn into Munich.  ¶ 6/17/2004 09:30:00 AM