After traveling from country to country, mostly staying in the same location for only 1 night, it’s amazing how peaceful familiarity can be. It doesn’t matter that you sleep on a leaky air-mattress, or that it’s with a cousin you haven’t seen in about 2 decades, and his wife and his good friend who you’ve never met before. It’s comforting because it’s family.

While working for his restaurant, I also had no problem pitching in every change I got. Assemble a grill. Make a peanut sauce for 150 people. Setup a room for a banquet. Come up with a Panini menu item (one of my favorites). Why? As I told Cousin Bill, “Because blood works harder than money.”

Lydia, Bill’s wife, wisked me around Stuttgart on my last day and we ran into one of her Louisiana friends. Not a Coonass, mind you, as she lived too far north, but still an interesting person nonetheless. I also found out that one of Lydia’s cousins is the lead singer of Pink Martini. And apparently, she is as beautiful as her voice; such that one of her German female friends is quoted as saying, “I think I’m turning Lesb-ish.”

For dinner, we were served by a Gay Asian waiter, speaking German. Swing Heil, indeed.

May 16th, in the Gatwick (London) Airport, realizing that I haven’t journaled in a while.