Back in Dresden and boy, I had a delightful flight. The weather was pleasant, we had strong tailwinds speeding our way, the layovers were short.
On the first leg I had to sit next to a woman who was so fat that you couldn’t put the armrest down. But she seemed to realize that I was bummed out about sharing half my seat with her, so she made an extra effort to be cool.
As I was sitting at the gate in Dulles, I was suddenly panic-stricken with the suspicion that I had forgotten how to speak German. “Say something German,” I told myself, which only made matters worse as I kept drawing blanks on anything worthwhile saying in German. Eventually I settled on “where’s the toilet,” and caught myself muttering that outloud intermittently to the bewilderment of the other passengers.