Airborne Over The Atlantic Flying To Frankfurt, Germany
1992.05.26 8.53
Mark: [groggily] "It's 8:53 A.M. German time and we are in a plane and we
are really, major suffering on jet-lag and I think that we maybe
slept for half and hour because the night only lasted about two
or three hours -- it really bites. You really can't sleep on an
airplane seat because it's SO comfortable." [to Dawn] "Don't you
agree?"
Dawn: "Definately."
Mark: [pausing] "These little one-word sentences will be interspersed all
throughout this tape, so, please enjoy."
Mark: "Dawn is currently worried about food. She said, 'What are we going
to eat?' And I tell her, 'We're gonna eat baguettes.'"
Dawn: "Well, when?!"
Mark: "When?"
Dawn: "First we have to go, to... through customs and that's going to take,
like, an hour. I don't know how long. And then we have to go to
the bank. We've got to FIND a bank and go to the bank. And then
we have to... find somewhere to eat."
Mark: "With my incredible sense of direction it'll take twenty minutes."
Dawn: "Cheesh."
Mark: "We're beginning our... we are on our descent at the airport in Frank-
furt, Germany."
Dawn: [barely audible] "I'd say we're at about one-hundred feet."
Mark: [louder] "We're about one-hundred feet away from the ground now."
Dawn: "Maybe a little more. Two-hundred feet. Well, we're getting fairly
close."
Mark: "We just passed two little, long runways."
Dawn: "I'd say... I'd say fifty feet."
Mark: [over sound of crying baby] "There's a baby freaking out (again)."
Dawn: "And... twenty... twenty feet."
Mark: "The right rudder is going to hit...?"
Dawn: "Uhhh... ten... we're very close, we're very close."
Mark: "We still haven't touched down. Ahhh..."
Dawn: "Oop. There we go. Wheeeee, wooooo."
Mark: "Woah, a rough landing."
Dawn: "Nah, that was not too bad.
Mark: "Okay, now, here come the engines, to... I don't know? They don't
reverse the engines on a DC-10, they just hit the brakes. That's
a real bummer. Maybe they'll hit them..."
Dawn: "The wings expand."
Mark: [sadly] "They don't reverse the engines..."
Dawn: [staring out window at the extended wings] "Oh, look!"
Mark: "It's so sad. Yes, we're at some airport, and, the army is here."
Dawn: "I've got to pee so bad."
Mark: "Yes, nature calls."
Mark: "I'm in the Frankfurt, Germany Airport. I'm in a strange terminal and
I'm waiting for Dawn to come out of the bathroom and I don't know
where to go. Gotta find customs. Somewhere around here, they are.
And... and I have to go to the bathroom to put my contact lenses in."
Mark: "Okay. We don't know where to go. We're looking for another bathroom
now, for me."
Dawn: "A bathroom. ANY bathroom."
Mark: "Or, actually, just a sink would be fine, I don't care, it's just,
anything so I can put my contact lenses in. I've got prescription
sunglasses on and we just figured 'this is a staircase, this is an
elevator/escalator, whatever, and we can take it.'"
Mark: "We're having our first tiff -- over time-tables."
Dawn: "Well, see, look! He's going to show us."
Dawn: "That's for parking, see."
Mark: "We're trying to find a place to get our Eurail pass validated and Dawn
has just said that she feels like a complete idiot."
Dawn: "I do!" [in valley-girl dialect] "Completely."
Mark: "Anyhow, so, it's a little more complicated than we thought, but, we'll
figure it out."
Mark: "She's wanting me to ask somebody a question."
Dawn: "No! Mark. Go on..."
Mark: [pausing] "I really don't want to do this."
Mark: "Here's my first breath of European air. Oh yeah. It's..."
Dawn: "...Germany at its best."
Mark: "Sure."
Dawn: "I don't know where the f___ we are. This is pissing me off."
Dawn: [sigh] "Where should we say we want to go?"
Mark: "St. Goar."
Dawn: "Just say that?"
Mark: "Just say that. Well, no, you have to get your Eurail pass validated
first."
Dawn: "I KNOW that."
Mark: [quickly, to tape] "She needs to eat."
Mark: "Well, we're back in the airport lobby to get some money changed over.
Fifty American dollars over to whatever they give us and we stood
behind somebody who was switching over an entire Swiss bank account,
probably, into Deutch Marks. He's about five-foot four and he doesn't
speak any English -- because I already asked. Hahaha..."
Dawn: [crosses arms and frowns]
Mark: "Oh, Dawn's giving me the 'Oh, he might really understand' look.
Hmmm... This is my way; talking behind someone's back." [whistles]
Mark: "Okay! We've been in Europe for three hours and WE HAVEN'T SEEN
ANYTHING!"
Mark: "It's moving."
Dawn: "I'm just making sure." [to tape] "Mark's mad at me."
Mark: "No, I'm not mad. She just needs to eat a meal. Then I'll have, like,
a couple of 'happy-hours' and then..." [Dawn laughs] "...I'll have to
go feed her again. It's sad. Okay, so now I've learned what it took
Andrew maybe a week to learn. Anyhow, so what's the uh... enough of
that. So, we're waiting for the train to Mains which moves to Koblenz
and..."
Dawn: [yawning] "And it's taking forever."
Mark: "It's... the... the wait is lengthy."
Mark: "We are on our first train in Europe, in Germany, driving through the
woods. It's a lot of fun. We're going very fast. How fast are we
going?"
Dawn: [thinking] "Uhhh... seventy miles an hour."
Mark: "Shhh... I don't know. My car... this, doesn't feel like seventy.
This feels like one-hundred and twenty or something. Anyway, yes,
it's nice, we're just driving along. We just showed our Eurail
passes."
Dawn: "Haha. It's not so good."
Mark: "We're kind of nervous, a little bit, but it's no big deal.
Eventually we'll take a trip to the dining car, I hope. Hehe..."
Mark: "Anyway, we just got off the train. We are in Koblenz, Germany. Now
Dawn is, like, torn between going to McDonald's or a donut place."
Dawn: [wide-eyed] "They have sandwiches."
Mark: "Oh, she's trying to rationalize..."
Dawn: "I haven't eaten anything. Seriously, 'cause I was like... Let's get
a loaf of bread."
Mark: "I'm in the bathroom of the McDonald's that looks just like a church
and when you put your hands under the hand-dryer it turns on
automatically." [demonstrates]
Mark: "We're in the McDonald's in Koblenz and Dawn was just coming upstairs
from the downstairs lavoratories which is when I took this photo,
and, this is what she said to me when she walked up..."
Dawn: [pausing] "You taking a picture of me?"
Mark: "Without the pause."
Mark: "Okay, the photograph that she just took involved me sitting in a...
in a second-class train that's on its way to St. Goar."
Dawn: [in the background] "And it's f___ing hot."
Mark: "It's very warm in here. It took a while to get the thing set." [sound
of train passing] "That's a red train passing, going the opposite
direction." [Dawn's voice barely audible] "What? Hold on."
Mark: [over loud wind rushing through train] "If you ever wondered how loud
it was when you left all the windows open in the train car, this is
the perfect example!"
Dawn: [yelling] "It's very loud!"
Mark: "Yes, and when you, like, pass through tunnels it gets worse." [listens]
"I don't know what that sound is." [pauses to think] "It's trees...
whooshing."
Mark: [over background] "Here, we're recording. Awww, it's over. What you
just heard was the..." [laughs]
Dawn: "Gawd."
Mark: "...cuckoo clock on the outside of some building somewhere in St. Goar."
Mark: "...and everytime you walk up to this elephant, it says something to
you in German which..."
Dawn: "You don't know."
Mark: "You really don't know what it says." [time passes] "Hold on..."
Dawn: [in background] "Now I'm taking a picture of those two."
Mark: "We have returned. And now it's time for bread and McDonald's... used
old McDonald's french fries while we go over the '22 Days In Europe'
book. Hmmm..."
Mark: [whispering] "Okay. We're at an Italian restaurant in Germany..."
[Dawn angrily reaches over and stops tape]
