Night in airport

A year and half ago, I visited my parents in Kiev. There isn’t any direct flight between Chicago and Kiev an I always have to change planes somewhere in Europe or in New York. That time I had to fly via Frankfurt. I had one hour and a half to transfer. It seemed enough. But the weather in Frankfurt was bad and the plane got to Kiev one hour late. So we departed late too. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be on time for my next plane, but what could I do? Unfortunately my fears came true: I arrived in Frankfurt only 15 minutes before my plane left! 15 minutes wasn’t enough for transfer to other terminal and pass customs.
So I was left in the airport in Germany. My English was terrible and I didn’t speak German at all. When I went to the airline’s office I saw a lot of people there, a lot of other planes were late. After I spent more than 1 hour in line I learned that there weren’t any other plane to Chicago that day. The airline granted accommodation in a hotel for every one who had to spend the night in Frankfurt. But I had to have a visa to get out of the airport. So I couldn’t go to the hotel. Representatives of the airline gave me two tickets for free diner and breakfast and let me call my husband and then said that couldn’t help me any more. It was about 7 pm, my plane would depart for Chicago at 10 am next morning. I had to spend 15 hours more in that airport.
I was nervous when I had to ask for directions and order a dinner. But workers of airport were helpful and polite. After dinner I took with me some water and fruits and went looking for some place where I could spend rest of the time. There were quite convenient seats in the passage, you can semi-lie on them. I had an interesting book and was quite pleased. In the end it was not so terrible as it could be. But in a couple of hours I understood that I couldn’t sleep because it was cold there and all my warm things were in the luggage. I couldn’t return to the warm duty-free zone because to do that I had to pass through customs and throw away the water and fruit! I didn’t want to do it but otherwise I couldn’t have a cup of tea in a warm cafe. In any case there wasn’t any place to sleep in the duty-free zone. So I walked through the airport, rode a train between terminals and sat somewhere to read my book for another hour.
Generally the airport in Frankfurt is beautiful and big. It was amusing to watch the employees who went across it on bicycles. At 6 am I threw the water out and went for breakfast. I didn’t want to eat, but the possibility to have a cup of coffee in a warm cafe was wonderful.
Near the necessary gate I was 1 hour early and till the end couldn’t believe that everything was okay. Although after the sleepless night, the nine-hours flight wasn’t easy, I was in seventh heaven – there was a pillow and blanket!
My worried husband waited for me in Chicago’s airport and couldn’t understood how could I communicate with people in Germany with my terrible English. I just said that I had no other choice. After this journey I learned two things: I shall never buy tickets with less then two hours between planes, and that I really need to improve my English.

В завершение для отражения общего настроения нашего собрания добавлю цитату из письма одной из участниц:
“Our last Elm Creek Book Club (ECBC) meeting was great! We read The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson. Although most of us felt the book was dated, it brought up many discussions about how the society presented in this book spawned many of today’s business practices as well as cultural mores. Some felt it was representative or the times; interestingly, others thought it did not represent the era well. The debate was lively and totally enjoyable.”

А это весенняя я

Немного цветочков:

Бурундучек, усиленно что-то жующий

И еще раз я

Полянка с нарциссами, первый раз увидела махровые нарциссы

Японский сад

И напоследок тюльпанчики

Но в этом году 9 мая красный день календаря и в Америке, потому что это второе воскресенье мая, а именно в этот день в США празднуют День матери. В этот день тут поздравляют своих матерей (то есть это не тоже самое что 8 марта у нас). Праздник достаточно популярен и о нем немало информации на просторах интернета. В этот день продается самое большое количество цветов и открыток. Из-за столь сильной коммерциализации праздника даже Анна Джарвис, которая когда-то добилась его учреждения, до самой смерти выступала против него. Ей очень не нравилось что люди просто отправляют своим матерям открытки, как бы для очистки своей совести:
“A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother—and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment. (Anna Jarvis)”
В любом случае поздравляю всех с праздником, а с каким выбирайте сами.

Напоследок, если Вы пользуетесь торрентами то вот тут можно найти огромный выбор адаптированных книг.

1 inch (in) – дюйм = 2,54 см
1 foot (ft) – фут = 12 inches = 30,48 см
1 yard (yd) – ярд = 3 feet = 91,44 см
1 mile (ml) – миля = 1,760 yards = 1,609 км
Логика данной системы мне не понятна, да и большинству американцев тоже.

Ability to solve problems. The boss on my last job was very stubborn, most of my co-workers were afraid of him and used to think that he was a tyrant. But he wasn’t a stupid man and thanks to him I improved my ability to solve problems. He used to say: “I’m not interesting in how you will do it, I just want this to be done”, and: “I don’t want to hear why you can’t do it. Tell me what you have done to do it”. And it’s good sometimes to ask yourself this questions. It works. For example your boss asks you to make a report about something by Thursday. You understand that this is impossible, but your boss doesn’t want to listen to you. Some people will start to think how they will explain why they haven’t done a report on time. They dwell on a negative result and waste their time. I learned that the best way in such a situation is to say: “I’m not sure I may be able to finish this report before Friday, but I’ll do my best”. Then you know that your boss is aware and you start your work. There is one phrase I like very much: “Someone who doesn’t want to looks for excuses; someone who wants to looks for possibilities”.

Пожалуй не все строго объективно, но в США если красиво себя не похвалишь, работу не найдешь