You'll Have to Call AT&T

FRANKFURT, GERMANY I made the flight with my two carry-ons and had the fortune of sitting next to a retired German couple, Igon and Marlies, who were returning from vacationing 1 1/2 months in the states. It was great fun talking with them in German, our language of choice, suggesting that I had made progress during the last few months in improving meine Sprachkenntnis. We talked most of the flight through. They had seen the German movie, Cherry Blossoms, and, like me, were taken by how the movie's theme resonated with their own experiences as aging parents. I mentioned Robert De Niro's movie, Everybody's Fine, which they had planned to see, and how strikingly similar the two movies were - for empty-nesters, over 65, two excellent movies, rich in comparisons.

iPhone Kaput

Tough news on the technology front – arriving in Ffm I found I had no phone service or internet connection. In theory, the airport has free wifi but for some reason I wasn’t able to connect with my notepad. My lack of service on my iPhone landed me at the newly opened Apple store, where after several hours of waiting, diagnosing, and considering options, they gave me a new iPhone, which sadly resulted in the loss of all my settings and data. I tried the new iPhone and, “oooh,” it showed no service. The Apple “Genius” responded, “Sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. You’ll have to call AT&T.” I found a hotel and learned that a call from there would cost me 2.50 Euro per minute. To make a long story short, after a lot of running around, I finally reached AT&T and found that they had screwed up when they set up my international calling features. What I’m left with now is a functioning phone but with none of my data and settings. It also has a skitzophrenic dual language personality - sometimes it likes to be German and other times quite happy being American. Meantime I still haven’t figured what’s with this wifi stuff.

Back tracking, my search for a hotel was too much of a challenge. My criteria were: reasonably priced, air conditioned, wifi connected, with parking and a telephone. Sounds simple enough, uh, uh, I went to six hotels; three of them had no air conditioning (it’s hot here) and three had no wifi. "Momentarily down they would say." In the end I settled for one that I thought had everything but only later found out that the phone in the room didn’t work nor did its wifi. The room is comfortable though and has a good air conditioning system. The search for a hotel, resolving my iPhone problems, and trying get a wifi connection took me well into the evening – exhausted.

Before I forget, I should mention, before I left SF, I heard from Dave Meaney. He and Inge are doing fine - still living and working in Frankfurt. Unfortunately, they are out of town, but I'm thinking maybe I can stop off in Ffm on my way to Cologne in August and connect with them then. He wrote me that Ward Carr, a mutual friend back then and teacher at Berlitz, is also still living in Ffm. Great if I could see Ward, but I'll have to wait until I hear from Dave with his contact information.

I also decided to leave Ffm on Sunday and fly direct to Tallinn and then work my way back to Poland. Getting around in the Baltic countries might be somewhat problematic; train service appears to be virtually non-existent and car rentals expensive. The cheapest I could find so far is $84/Day. Bus seems to be the transportation of choice and, "Gott sei Dank," quite inexpensive. I'll see what Tallinn has to offer and then perhaps on to Riga, Latvia.

The Euro is climbing. When I left, it was at 1.28 and at SFO, they were exhanging it at 1.46 - what a rachet! I was hoping I could get a better rate in Ffm but it's the same. Frau Merkel through budget cutbacks is determined to stabilize the Euro as she is convinced that a stable Euro is essential to Germany's economy. Quite a contrast with the Obama administration, and the likes of Paul Krugman, who must be the most ill-deserved Nobel prize winner ever, who are convinced we can spend our way out of this crisis. The top U.S. tax rate is now at 35%. With a California top rate of over 11%, we now have the honor of having a higher tax rate than Germany, but who is radically cutting back on their spending while continuing to maintain a first-class health and welfare system. But if our government can find just a few more earmarks to throw money at, we should do just fine - huh?