@happymusic...PM me if you end up actually going to Germany. Been there many times. The only substantive difference from this little manual is that at the German airports where I've disembarked (Koln-Bonn, Hahn, Dusseldorf, Berlin-Tegel, Berlin-Schoenefeld, Frankfurt am Main) you don't usually get to go through the jetway like in this silly little manual...you usually must go down a set of stairs and either walk to the terminal building across the tarmac or get into a bus that will take you there. Sort of like in older movies. Otherwise, never experienced any problems...the immigration officers have never really asked any questions, the airport staff have usually been very friendly, and it's usually been easy to navigate my usual post-flight path (smoking area-->convenience store for a beer to forget the flight-->smoking area-->train/bus) by just following the signs/maps, which are conveniently in German and English.
That little digression being satisfied...I think we're talking at cross-purposes in this thread to some degree. I would also like manuals telling me exactly what to expect when I go to an unfamiliar place, and I try not to travel to a new city without assembling things like transit maps and schedules so I can know exactly where I should go and at what times. But that is just my need to control my environment. The things that have most helped me otherwise in traveling strange places have been things like the "Culture Shock" books so I could know what types of interactions people would expect to have. That's not really present here. Maybe a guide about "what to do if the gate agents/TSA personnel are unpleasant" or "how to deal with loud noises in the airport/screaming kids on the flight/unexpected turbulence" or "what to do if my room isn't ready" would be more helpful.
And seriously...even assuming, arguendo, that this thing needs to be written at a very basic level, does it need to be written in a didactic, moralizing, "you will take orders and you will like them" tone that is more typical of children's books from prior to the 1960s than something appropriate for adults in more advanced and progressive times? Fran Liebowitz famously said that waiting for baggage in the baggage claim area is a time when even non-smokers will step out for a cigarette (I'm paraphrasing and not citing the essay exactly...I apologize...I don't have the book at hand), but you will not do that because "This is the Baggage Claim area....I WILL wait patiently until I see my bag." (emphasis added)
And by the way, "baggage claim" is not a proper noun. "Lincoln Town Car" is.
12 Aug 2010, 12:44 am
