Home Again, Or, Where Did I put the Key?
Trip Start
May 05, 2011
1
27
Trip End
Jun 09, 2011
Cypress, Texas
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Leaving the hotel for the airport often involves very early flights and this was no exception. No matter how hard I searched, the only way to get out of Budapest and back to Houston, with any reasonable connections, is to leave Budapest at 6:30 AM. So, we were met at the hotel by Erika Mihaly's stepfather at 4:00 AM. We rode through darkened, empty streets. Only a few, early delivery vehicles passed us. It was as though there was no one to say goodbye.
The Budapest Airport, at 4:30 AM, was a different scene entirely. Everyone, it seemed, was forced to travel in the wee hours of the morning. Chaos reigned as KLM employees attempted to help crowds of Japanese tourists operate self-check-in terminals. In doing so, they were blocking access to every line that could reach the ticket agents who, it might be added, were sitting there simply staring at the babel and chaos a few feet from them.
Nancy decided that she did not want to carry her small bag. Having navigated the self-servicing crowd, I reached an agent. She was most pleasant throughout the encounter. When we got to the question of how many bags we wanted to check, she smilingly informed me that I needed to go across the lobby to a KLM desk there, where another agent would charge me for the additional bag and issue a receipt. Sweetly, she said, "I will hold your tickets until you return." I remember the sinking feeling that, perhaps, I was about to be caught in a Kafkaesque cycle of agents and tickets. Fortunately, after about 10 minutes of waiting for the second agent to get her computer system booted and initialized, I was given a receipt for a third checked bag fee.
Back through the Japanese crowds I went. Only this time by ducking under the line barriers and proceeding directly to the agent we had seen previously.
The Budapest flight to Amsterdam was short and, to be honest, I cannot remember very much about it. The Amsterdam Airport is one gigantic shopping center conveniently served by airplanes. Walking throught it was fun although it took all one's willpower not to go into the duty-free electronics shop. Surely there was a gadget I did not own that I could get really cheaply here.
Finally, we heard the call for KLM flight 660 to Houston. That commenced the most intense security scanning and check-in we ever experienced. We were put through a full body scanner, still felt-up by an agent, ordered to remove nearly everything (watches, wallets, paper money, a belt that has no metal in it whatsovever), requested to empty my carry-on of electronic gear and pass each component through individually. All in all, I made three trips back and forth through the metal detector, in addition to the full body scan.
Aboard, we settled in for our long flight home. To see if it was possible to avoid the "crushed" sensation of economy, I had paid a bit extra for KLM's "Comfort Seats." Actually, I had paid extra to have seats that provided a few inches of extra leg room and paid extra again, for seats that were only two abreast. In a separate cabin behind Business Class, there were about 10 rows of these seats. I came to think of this as the "Big Boys' Cabin." Nearly everyone there were males of rather ample proportions. Some looked like they had played high school linebacker. A few were wearing really large work boots. That's when I realized these were probably the oil workers, moving between North Sea, Nigerian, and Gulf platforms. Not quite in the ranks to be provided business class, the new comfort class afforded them the room they so clearly needed. The fact was that the additional leg room, the absences of a third body pressing on your left or right, and the smaller cabin, made the flight much more tolerable.
Finally Houston, a relatively quick trip through Border Security and Customs, and a remarkably quick retrieval of our bags made it seem like we were home. Our driver was waiting, although, we must admit, we walked right past him -- he did not have a sign because, I guess, he had driven us before and assumed his image was burned into our memory. Obviously that did not work both ways -- he watched us walk right past him and never said a word.
Home! Well almost home. The morning we left, I had locked the front door and, taking the single key put it in a "safe place." Now, 35 days later, I could no remember where that "place" was nor, after frantic searching, find it in any logical hiding spot. Of course, sometimes these travel clothes do have secret pockets that even I cannot find again.
