Last post about our 6 months away

I’ll admit that when it comes to traveling I’m a little difficult. I hate the thought of being late for a flight or having to rush through an airport so I always want to be there very early. I will further admit that when it comes to going through security I am a little difficult. Nothing, and by nothing I mean nothing but crowds and getting my haircut, bothers me more than going through airport security.

I don’t mind the x-rays and the wanding and the taking shoes off and the taking computers out and the taking belts off and the liquids and the so and and so forth. I am always worried that I am holding the line up. I hate the thought that my taking three minutes to get through security might be 2 and a half minutes too long. I don’t care if the people in front of me have no clue and have to go back and forth for 10 minutes before clearing security but I always feel like I’m taking far too long even if I only take 2 minutes. It’s a personal flaw.

It bothers me a lot.

A lot.

Anyway we were at the airport about three hours early (perfect timing according to me). The taxi dude left, we had all of our luggage loaded onto two carts and we entered the madhouse of OTP.

I’ve traveled a bit. More than most but not as much as others. I’ve never encountered an airport setup like they have in Bucharest.

Well maybe Edmonton when you fly to the US but it isn’t as bad as this was.

When we entered the airport we hit a wall of humanity. People on every seat (not that there were many seats but the seats were full). People standing in all the aisles. People sitting on the planters. People everywhere.

There are a limited number of ticketing counters at OTP. They are not permanently assigned to any airline, rather they assign them on a next flight basis.

If there are 10 flights between 2 and 3 the flights between 3 and 4 have to wait until the counters clear from the 2 and 3 flights before they can check in for their flight.

As I said we were three hours early, there was no place to sit and the latest flights on the board (i.e. flights with a counter to go to) were 2 and a half hours before our flight. So we sat.

On a planter.

And we sat.

And we waited.
Eventually (a couple of hours after our arrival) our flight had a counter. We hesitantly approached the counter as the sea of humanity had moved to form a scrum directly in front of the British Airways counter. No semblance of a line. Just a big group of people.

Romanians are allergic to lines. Its, as I’ve said before, whoever has the sharpest elbows gets served first. Swell decided to break out her elbows and they are sharp.

Swell is, how should I say this… thin.

And, therefore, sharp.

She elbowed us to the front of the line and we were quickly helped with every airline passengers worst nightmare: “You probably noticed that the flight is delayed an hour and a half.”

Gosh darn.

Swell Well that gives us time to eat!

Our luggage was all over weight (but equally so. That should count for something. I eyeballed equal weighing of the luggage! Go me!) but they took it none-the-less.

We went through security. And I was as stressed out as usual, but we survived and made it to our gate.

Dinner time.

Romania doesn’t like us.

Hates us.

Wants us to never return. So it charged us $5 (US) for a can of coke. FIVE DOLLARS Add on top of that two sandwiches and we had to re-mortgage our house.

Ridiculous.

While Swell shopped (and by shopped I mean walked around looking at stuff) I was lucky enough to get to sit by a German braggart. He picked the wrong guy to brag to. I really don’t hold you in high regard if you bought land in Romania at a ridiculously low price shortly after the revolution and now have since made millions economically raping the people of Romania.

Good for you.

Jerk.
Flight was fine.

Quite short.

We landed at London Heathrow but our flight to Atlanta departed from Gatwick.

This required an airport transfer.

I think I wrote about our airport transfer on our way to Palestine. It was terrible. We were forced to wait in a freezing cold foyer in a line that was then ignored as the back of line got on the bus, and thereby filling it, prior to the front of the line (read us). So we had to wait a couple buses before getting on the old, decrepit bus for our transfer from Gatwick to Heathrow.

We were not looking forward to this transfer.

We were now thousands of kilometers from Romania.

The sun started to shine on us again.

We found the place to wait for the coach. It was warm.

We bought our tickets.

We got a discount because we flew in on British Airways.

We were instructed where to go and wait.

Organized unlike the chaos from the previous transfer.

Swell was thirsty so she went to get some drinks.

She found me a Dr. Pepper.

We got to the bus stop and saw a beautiful coach. Brand new. Next to it was a bus going to Gatwick but departing earlier than our ticket was for. The driver of our bus mentioned that we could just get on the other bus. We did.

It was empty. Comfortable. Beautiful.

At the front of the bus was a giant TV that was hooked to a camera on the front of the bus.

We were so happy.

Swell found a very expensive hotel for us to stay at the Gatwick airport as we had 12ish hours before our ATL departure.

It was such a nice hotel and, although expensive, was far cheaper than the rack rate listed on the wall at the front desk.

We were a bit perturbed when we found that we received a smoking room. We checked it out and it wasn’t too bad, it was actually ok and we were too tired to argue about it.

A quick dinner (don’t ask… o.k. our wallets could only afford McDonalds) and then it was off to bed.

Our checkout and flight the next day were fine. Our only problem was that we were severely warned that British Airways would not accept overweight luggage after September 1. Lucky us. They took our overweight luggage.

We were soon in Atlanta.

After we switched seats in the airplane because Swell’s was broken.

The seat I switched to had a broken TV. Jerks.

The guy sitting next to us thought he was a VIP. Took up his seat and half of mine. And he was not very big. Just important.

He tried to buy a bunch (I mean thousands off British Pounds) worth of duty free on the plane but his credit card was rejected. Insert roll eyes here.

I watched a movie (300) and then for the second movie Swell sat in the working TV seat. Just after the movie started my TV started working.

Just before the movie ended…


… the TV broke again. Dagnabit.

We arrived in Atlanta and so did all of our luggage. Thankgoodness.

Arriving in ATL from an international flight is a bit crazy. You land.

You go through security.

You collect your luggage.

You go through customs.

You recheck your luggage!?

You catch a train to baggage claim.

You collect your luggage again.

I don’t ask questions I just do as I’m told. And we were told to bypass the line to recheck our luggage. So I did despite the stares and the dirty looks. Don’t care. I’m an important person apparently.

We got our luggage again and walked over to the MARTA station (light rail transit).

The machine that gave tickets wouldn’t read my card – or more likely, I couldn’t figure out how to use the machine – so we headed over to the cashier where we were fortunate enough to have to wait 10 minutes (not an exaggeration) for her to finish her conversation with the guy in front of us.

No the conversation was not about MARTA or any other type of transportation.

It was just a conversation.

The airport is the end of the line so we were easily able to get a seat with plenty of room for our luggage.

Unfortunately to get home requires us to transfer trains.

It was rush hour.

That was not fun.

We squeezed into a corner with four suitcases and two backpacks. And we fought our way out of the train at our stop.

A short walk through the newly (and after a year and a half finally) finished train station and down the street and we were home.

Home sweet home.

The end of a long journey.

They say home is where the heart is. I don’t believe that as my home is not Swell but this is the next best thing. We are comfortable here. We are happy to be back in our home. We slept like babies in our bed that night.

&*()(*&
Not very happy about walking into a store today that sold the kind of clothes I would like to wear if I were rich and being greeted with a: “How you doing today Sir.”

I blame Swell. If I didn’t have to get my haircut I wouldn’t be a sir. My shoulder length hair, although it made me look older, made me feel/seem younger.

It’s her fault.

Sir.

As if.

*&*&

For your amusement. Our posts about our time in Romania/trip home take up 85 pages (there are some page breaks though) in Word and are made up of 30,492 words.