+48° 34' 23.49", +7° 47' 55.38"

As we get closer to the village of Kehl, the B28 highway follows a little river—I figure it must be a tributary of the Rhine, except that it looks more like a canal, sometimes even a drainage ditch. It's the the kind of waterway that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would love: dredged, routed, measured and rationalized. But as I drive beside it the little river keeps pulling at my mind, and now I think no, it's not rational at all, here it looks as if an orderly giant has pulled his finger through the soft earth, and I imagine an immense soil-encrusted finger, soon to be licked clean by the tongue of a loyal slobbering dog. The little river's name? I have no idea. I see a sign or two, but I think better about asking Bruno or Lambert—the signs might mean "No Littering" or "Fishing Only for Senior Citizens" and I don't want to accumulate any more American Idiot points this afternoon.

Then we veer left, heading toward France. Around us sprawls the industrial fringe of Kehl—railyards and warehouses. Next thing I know we're crossing the Rhine—on a dreary old causeway that must be the Europa Brücke/Pont de l'Europe. For a symbol of peace, reconciliation and unity, the bridge is very utilitarian, even boring—it looks like it was rebuilt in a hurry at the end of World War II, which it probably was. There's a nice pedestrian bridge, though, one of those soaring Calatrava rip-offs—a few hundred meters to the south.

Just as I expected, the border crossing itself is clear sailing. It's like driving through those tollboths outside Chicago, where you don't need to stop—except it's even easier, because you don't need that thingey...

And then I see that something is wrong.

Burned out buildings.

Police tape.

Armed troops, with sub-machine guns, guarding workers boarding up smashed windows.

"What the hell happened here?" I say.

"The anti-OTAN riots," says Lambert. "I think you call it NATO."

"Don't you watch TV?" says Bruno. "It happened last week. The Black Bloc anarchists set fire to the custom house during the summit."

I pull over to the first parking spot I can find.

"C'mon," I say. "You mean there were riots—buildings burning—right here—at this symbol of European unity?" I don't care how stupid I sound—I want to know.

"Like I said," says Bruno, "Don't you watch TV? Did you even know your president was here?"

"Of course I knew," I say. "It was all over the news. But I kept turning off the TV—it was all about Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni—their clothes, their make-up, their hair, whether they really got along or not..."

"American TV is fucking stupid." Once again, a female voice comes from the wayback seat. I look back. Now that we're parked, I can actually turn my head. Bertha has taken the Duke of Lower Lotharingia out of his kindersitz and holds him defiantly in her lap.

"I read about it in a magazine," says Bertha. "You have the second-stupidest TV shows in the world."