the Hajj Part 1: Travel Grime, Hidden Bathrooms, and other malicious pitfalls of the unwary traveler

I'm sitting here at INTRNT a couple blocks from my hotel and, seeing as I've got the rest of this hour for 1 JD, I'd better start typing.

(no pictures in this post either, miskeen, but next time I sit down I'll make sure to upload a few.)
The Hajj - a journey of relocation for Muhammad, and for me also.

The flight:
-9 hours to Frankfurt from Denver. Denver? What the heck?
-No sleep, but plenty of Germans and a foretaste of Arabic pop music on the 16-channel headphones. Think club music with a string quartet in the background. Pretty sweet.
-Nate (my travel buddy) and I touched down in Frankfurt in what can best be described as a state of optimistic confusion.

Frankfurt was--wow---what a disappointment. Part of the downer comes, I'm sure, from the fact that we lacked a basic amount of sleep and had accrued a great deal of 'travel grime' on the way over . 'Travel grime' is that grime that just accumulates in the various bodily crevices due to prolonged stasis of posture. Other aliases of 'Travel grime' are 'Dude sweat,' 'Major B.O.,' and, in some circles, 'Swamp Ass.'

Be warned. The onset of Travel Grime is mysterious and gradual, yet it reaches fatal magnitude at the most inopportune of times, such as: in places of close personal interaction with other people, commonly used methods of transport like trains, and especially the closed-cabin variety of aeroplane.

And it didn't help that whatever I had eaten before the flight was giving me massive, crazy mad corn farts, which are just the worst. The worst. I think that was the key factor in why I didn't get any sleep. I was waking up repeatedly. It was terrible. If I was the U.S. Army and I was devising a method of interrogation absolutely counter to the Geneva Convention, I would feed my prisoners food that gives them crazy, mad corn farts. It's probably the worst method of sleep deprivation imaginable.

So onto Frankfurt. I've got a nice owie from running up the down escalator in the Main Station to catch a train on another platform, so that's a negative. Add to it the huge district of sex shops slapping you in the face as you leave the Hauptbahnhof, and my experience trying to find one of Frankfurts many Hidden Bathrooms, while sleep-deprived and experiencing the final stages of Travel Grime (the dissolving of the integumentary system), and what you get in summation is a pretty miserable time.

One more story, if you please:

Frankfurt is not one of the midieval castle towns of historic Germany, but I feel for that reason it holds a great deal of castle envy. Because in more ancient times Frankfurt lacked any kind of valuable commodity which a King would feel obliged to protect, Frankfurt created a commodity of its own: Hidden Bathrooms.

Frankfurt is a veritable fortress when it comes to finding bathrooms. It has developed an entire aesthetic, an architectural style, envisioned around the inconvenient and awkward placement of unlabeled bathrooms.

Please forgive the following illustration, gentle reader. Imagine being in such a situation (the Hidden Bathrooms conundrum) while dragging around inside your body the Hoover Dam of reservoirs. You and I both know that after heavy rains, that dam's gotta let some discharge through the spillways, or else due to the massive compound force of gravity, scientifically speaking, it will explode.

And if you're trying to ask for the location of said Hidden Bathroom? Forget it--they will let you know, finally, but only after they are satisfied with your abject humiliation.

It really wasn't that bad. I complain only for the sake of hyperbole and to fulfill my duty as a blogger.

Although the bathroom was unlabeled, it was quite stylish and the stall was fabricated with one sheet of stainless steel. The light was an indirectly placed shade of delicate nicotine, and was vaunted off the mirrors at a precise, thorough, and overall very functionable location. In this manner it resembled another product of German engineering: the BMW.

But perhaps the only really redeeming feature of Frankfurt: great Chicken-Fried Pork.

Overall Blogging Critism rating for Frankfurt: C minus minus.

Part 2 will detail the odyssey of arriving in Amman half-mad from travel grime, possessing a meager and rapidly deplenishing supply of JDs in a neighborhood where every business was closed for Friday prayers, including all banks, money changers, and all sources of drinkable water.

Don't worry. The adventure gets far more upbeat. I am glad that my home for the next 5 months, Amman, is far, far, different from Frankfurt. As my friend Mohammed used to say:
"Its-a-greayt!"

Pr@y:
-I'm already disliking Americans for their unique ability to complain about everything. (If you need an example, read the entire last post^.) Ask My Father that I'd have the kind of love he has for all people, including whiny Americans, the kind that are going to be my student companions for the rest of my stay at the University here.

Really, I'm checking up on you guys too. I promise.

Until Next Post,
-KB