in which we negotiate the Alps and are Impressed by String.
Thursday 09 July 1998 - Klagenfurt, Austria
The flight over the Alps would have been way impressive had the clouds not been thicker than oatmeal.
Also, I notice as I stand in the cockpit[1] that the altimeter reads 13,000 feet. That's damn high for a plane with no pressurization, a fact that becomes painfully clear as we start to drop out of the clouds, aiming for a narrow valley. Dropping fast. Very fast.
I am deaf for about six hours after we land.
Due to a screw-up somewhere in the airshow organization, our crew has been broken up & sent to 2 different hotels. I'm sent off with Alastair, Andréa and Anne as the sole consonant to an olde-worlde hotel in beautiful downtown Klagenfurt. Well, it would have been beautiful had not there been a scaffolding rigged up outside my window and hideous traffic noises all day.
An hour on the phone to Loki does much to restore my sense of well-being.
Friday 10 July 1998 - Klagenfurt
Since the airshow doesn't open until tomorrow, we commandeer the minivan and go off in search of aloe vera capsules for Karen. Since we don't know the words for 'aloe vera', 'pharmacy' or 'constipation', we're reduced to some pretty amusing charades. Finally we find the center of town and an apotheke. I wander off in search of amusement.
According to the front-desk girl at my hotel, there is a big-screen tv set up in the main square, to broadcast the World Cup at nights. It's still there and surrounded by stalls selling every description of wurst and lager and pils, and people are shouting and cheering at the highlights show. (the real game is on tonight -- this is just replays of last night's game.) I don't stop to watch, even though I missed last night's game through not being able to work the tv, because I'm on a quest.
My journal has finally been filled, and I am in sore need of a new one. I wander the streets around the square, looking for a bookstore. When I find one, the clerk happily speaks english & I try to convey what I want.
'Journal. Blank book? To write in?' Idiotically, I mime writing.
She gives me a look of total non-comprehension. In a voice that is part reproachful, part amazed that I should even ask for such a thing, she says, 'No books for writing. Only for reading.'
Ok.
I do manage to find a jade lifesaver[2] for Loki, and being happily ignorant of any tradition attached to jade lifesavers, buy him one.
Saturday 11 July 1998 - Klagenfurt
This is far and away the weirdest airshow I've ever been to.
The crowds are let out onto the ramp at eight, to wander among the planes. At 10.30, right before the actual flying displays start, the polizei show up and herd the people off the ramp and over the field about a mile away[3].
They are accomplishing this with a length of pink string.
Andréa and I are amazed. The polizei are moving ten thousand people off the ramp using nothing more than a few mumbled words in german and some string. We agree that american and english airshow-goers wouldn't stand for this, but Austrian fans are evidently well-trained.
Or perhaps it's the string.
Perhaps it's a particularly vicious strain of string, bred in captivity and purposely kept underfed and edgy.
Well, after the crowds are taken away, we've nothing to do but sit and watch the show. Nothing like seeing the Italian jet team roar over one's head at an altitude of about 50 feet. After an hour or so of this we start to get bored and come up with the idea of putting 'Jets Are For Kids' stickers on all the jets on the ramp.
We're parked next to a pair of RAF Harriers, so they're our first targets. The pilots submit with a grin to having their gear doors tagged. One of the pilots asks me if I'd like to have a look in the little jet, so I climb up and have the systems explained to me. I resist the urge to start pressing buttons.
Eventually I climb down, thank Lt. Chris and sit under the tent to watch the show and doze. Captain Frank comes up to me a bit later, grinning like a devil, and tells me, 'That Harrier pilot wanted to know if you were married. I told him I didn't know if you were, but I was pretty sure your husband was.' Andréa and I laugh over this. Andréa laughs harder than I do, but this has no significance for me at the moment. I grin back at Frank and say, 'Cool. He was the cute one.' Andréa is now choking to death, she's laughing so hard. 'What?' I demand. She laughs harder. 'What?!?' Mutely, unable to speak, she points behind me .... where the Harrier pilots are sitting in the shade of the Connie's wing.
If there is an opportunity to make a idiot out of myself, I tend to seize it :)
Sunday 12 July 1998 - Klagenfurt
Today the string is purple. It seems to work even better than the pink stuff.
I also get an interesting lesson in linguistics. German is not my language, but I've been picking up words & phrases as I go, and today I got Alastair to tell me the German phrases for our tour prices. So I'm standing at the foot of the stairs, collecting tour admission, and when people ask me 'how much?' I rattle off my scanty store of German at them.
Instantly, people assume that I actually speak the language, and launch a veritable barrage of German at me. I can only smile and shrug. I really wish I spoke German.
[1] This is what's great about flying in a private plane. I can stand in the cockpit and watch all the dials if I want to. The fact that I wouldn't know if they were telling me bad things is beside the point.
[2] It's not an actual lifesaver. Just lifesaver-shaped. Is there a word for that shape?
[3] This is because it's bad for the general public to be directly below the flight-line in case there's a crash. I guess it's ok for the crews to be crashed upon, though.
