Still here

Believe it or not, I did make it home safe and sound on Monday night. I've been trying my best to play catch-up this week and am just now finding a couple minutes to write.

My trip home was much more eventful than I thought it would be. I flew out of Timisoara on the 6:00am flight. On that flight were two other Americans, a middle-aged guy from North Carolina and a younger guy (mid-20s) who was a Romanian native but has lived in California for the last 14 years. He was going back to California to visit his fiancée. I didn't sit by or talk to either of these guys but took note of them as they chatted to each other while we waited to board our flight to Vienna.

I enjoyed Vienna thoroughly as you no doubt read, and I boarded the flight to Washington along with all the other passsengers for our scheduled 10:40am departure. Everyone was aboard and waiting for pushback from the gate when the captain came on the intercom and said that a security situation had arisen and that a "suspicious person" was refusing to fly to Washington. So, everyone had to deplane, all baggage was removed for re-screening, and the whole plane had to undergo a full security sweep! While all the passengers were waiting at the gate for everything to be completed, I found myself close to the North Carolina guy who had traveled from Timisoara to Vienna on my same flight. He was continuing on to Washington, too. As it turns out, the "suspicious person" was our other American friend! Mr. North Carolina relayed the whole story. Apparently, Mr. California was quite agitated all morning and was talking to Mr. North Carolina all the way from Timisoara and during the wait for the connecting flight in Vienna about how he wasn't sure if he wanted to fly, didn't know if he would board the plane, etc. Well, he did board after all, but as the door was closing, he jumped up and said, "I'm not flying on this plane!"

As a result of his boneheaded move, my flight from Vienna was delayed for two hours. We didn't take-off until 12:35pm, and landed at 4:10pm instead of 2:50pm in Washington. I knew that I was going to be pushing it, but thought that I had enough time to make my next flight at 5:16pm. Ha! Oh ye naïve fool! When one arrives at Dulles on an international flight, you have to take a bus from the plane to the Customs hall, then you go through Passport Control, pick up luggage from the carousel, take it back over to be re-checked, go through regular security, and then go to your connecting gate. Passport control was snap and took only a minute. The luggage carousel was a different matter, though. My suitcase was literally the last one off the plane, and I stood there 35 minutes before getting it. I rushed over to re-check my bag and boogied upstairs. I reached security and then had to wait another 15 minutes. After undressing and redressing, I made it past the TSA and pushed onward to Terminal C. But wait, there's more! To get to Terminal C from security, you have to take another bus across the airfield--ten more minutes! I finally arrived at my connecting gate at 5:25pm, and the flight to Norfolk left at 5:15pm. I nearly cried right then and there!

After a couple of phone calls to my wife and working with a couple of United customer service agents, I was re-booked on US Airways flights connecting through Charlotte to Norfolk. So, instead of arriving back home at 6:30pm on Monday evening, I got home at 10:30pm with an extra flight thrown in for good measure. At least it wasn't on Tuesday! That looked to be the only possibility with the first customer service agent I worked with. What a day! It's like the old axiom says, never travel with a shifty Romanian who has lived in California for fourteen years...

More to come...