Our arrival into Frankfurt, at 5:30a local time, was in actuality 11:30p Boston time, and 9:30p Denver time. UGH. The people at the Frankfurt airport, both travelers and employees alike, seem to possess an interesting interpretation of ‘No Smoking’. While there are quite a few No Smoking signs throughout the airport, along with several small smoking sections with tables and chairs, the concept of no smoking is foreign to almost everyone. People are smoking everywhere. We are pretty spoiled in America, with our non-smoking restaurants, buses, trains, etc. This may take some getting used to . . .

Having had a rather unsatisfactory continental breakfast on Lufthansa about two hours prior, we decided to seek out some real coffee and semi-real food. However, we did not have any Euros, so we needed to find a café that accepted credit cards. There was a currency exchange booth, but the fee for the exchange was 3 Euros. It seemed silly to exchange ten dollars in currency, and get charged three dollars for the transaction.

With our coffee and croissants in hand, we stood at a table and observed the people at the airport. While German was spoken everywhere, it was also apparent that almost everyone spoke English. Whenever a non-German approached the cashier to order something, the cashier and customer spoke to each other in English. It is very true what someone once said, “If an Italian and a Swede meet one another on the streets of Barcelona, they speak English to each other.”

We also noticed that it was going to be difficult to completely get away from American culture. Our terminal in Frankfurt featured one of the first (of many) McDonald’s we were going to see during our travels. There was also a casino in the terminal, with American-English slot machines.

With our flight set to depart, we headed to our gate. The gates featured televisions, with, of course, CNN International. A quick look around at fellow passengers certainly made us feel like we were going to Poland – everyone looked so, well, Polish.

Having settled into my seat (middle seat – bummer), we soon were faced with another interesting thing. American’s concept of cleanliness borders on obsessive. Many Europeans, including Poles, do not bath nearly as much as we do, and thus have, to us ‘clean’ Americans, certain offensive body odors. The gentleman in the window seat next to me fell under this category. This is something we definitely have to get used to.