Thursday, November 12, 2009
Debrecen, Hungary
Hi everyone. I hope you're all doing well, are not too cold and are getting sufficient rainfall. I’m gonna crank out another e-mail before I hit the road mañana to Cha-cha-China. I hope you’re all doing well because I actually am. I’m feeling a lot better this trip and I think it’s mostly due to two things: 1) being able to accept my stepped-up role that may require me to take more trips and at more sudden notice and 2) the fact that I don’t have to spend part of this trip putting out fires and explaining things to my bosses and instead can concentrate on the actual work. Of course, I caused at least one of the fires myself but whatever. I still miss home but at least this time I’m not borderline depressed.
Anyway, there’s nothing particularly exciting to speak about on this trip since it’s been work work work so I’m going to write a piece on my love/hate affair with air travel. I apologize in advance if some of this repeats thoughts from earlier e-mails.
Airplanes are crazy things. How the heck a big piece of metal that weighs gosh-knows how many tons can actually get in the air and stay aloft is still mind-boggling to me. I think something along those lines every single time I travel. It is truly a marvel that I can fly from Austin to Denver and then Denver to Phoenix in the time it takes to drive from Austin to Fort Stockton. Or I can go to sleep over Lake Superior and wake up over the Baltic Strait. That people from so many different cultures can design, build and then fly those same planes to far-flung locales all over the world is just phenomenal. There’s almost something magical about it really. I especially feel it when flying over something really cool to look out upon such as the Rocky Mountains, the frozen St. Lawrence River or Russian volcanoes. I hope I never lose the sense of awe.
Actually, I hope I never lose the sense of awe because if I do there won’t be anything else positive about airplane travel. Well, that’s not totally true. I love being able to be away from everything for a few hours. No cell phones (at least not yet on the planes I fly). No internet (yes, that’s a good thing). Just you, the scenery (if it’s daylight and you have a window) and the ‘ol iPod serenading you. Spanish dance music just sounds better at 36,000 feet. If the flight is long enough and you have a movie-watching device such as a laptop, iPod or screen in the seat in front of you, you can catch up on some movies. The flight from Frankfurt to Boston on my last trip allowed me to watch The Hangover and State of Play, two decent movies I never would’ve seen otherwise. The food is usually not so great but occasionally it’s pretty good such as American Airline’s personal pizzas they seem to serve on every flight coming back to the US from Europe. And then there’s the Delta airlines safety lady telling me not to smoke on the plane:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m80ky_7SrPs
She’s the best. And sometimes there are the flight attendants who actually act like they’re enjoying their job such as the crew on the Northwest flight from Memphis to Austin who introduced themselves to us as Daryl and his lovely ex-wife Donna. Airport food can be hit-or-miss. The sandwiches all taste the same but sometimes you find a gem like the great pizza in Terminal 2 in Phoenix. Oh, and the feeling of exhiliration that comes when you get onto a plane for which you were on the stand-by list. I’ve only felt that when I was trying to catch an earlier flight just to get home earlier, having only once been on stand-by for a flight I just had to catch (the Frankfurt-Chicago flight I missed last time).
There are of course tons of bad things. Turbulence, for one. I hate turbulence. Why can’t the clear sky be as calm as it appears when you’re on the ground? I used to be horrible about it but now I’m rather stoic with the help of several things:
The ability to breathe only through my nose. The attorney I work with at work, who does yoga, taught me that one. It makes you feel more detached and not caring. Only problem is that it cuts off enough oxygen to your brain to make you almost pass out. It’s a constant battle between breathing little enough to still be detached but not too much to pass out. Though I’ve been on a couple of flights where passing out might have been easier.
The ability to relax. Sometimes it’s tough but if you just relax your body will absorb the vibrations and you’ll be less likely to feel them. If your body is taut and rigid, the vibrations will go right through you. You’re supposed to be like a shock absorber. And it works. Even when your palms are sweaty.
The knowledge that a certain wife and a certain pooch make my life very happy. You all make my life happy too but I find it hard to think about you when the plane is bouncing around like a pinball.
Knowledge of turbulence. For instance, when your stomach goes into your throat, the plane most likely has only dropped a couple of feet. Also, that the plane wants to stay level. It’s its natural position. That planes are extremely safe. It seems almost every country has an airline and there are at least 29 of them that have never had a fatality including Air Jamaica, Air New Zealand, Finnair, Royal Jordanian and Qantas. I had to remember that one when flying on the Polish airline. That the air at higher altitudes is thinner and the turbulence isn’t as bad. That pilots and flight attendants are not insane for wanting to ride around in planes as part of their job.
Electronic entertainment options, meaning the iPod, laptop or television showing a movie. You can’t block out the turbulence but having something else to concentrate on definitely helps. Books don’t work though. I’ll know I’m a really good flyer when I can read during turbulence.
I still can’t stand it but I’m not as bad as I used to be. We hit a hard patch between Warsaw and Budapest in a small plane (but not too small) in the dark. I was in the back which is the worst place to be. I prefer the middle which is supposed to be more stable. Whether it is or not isn’t important; what’s important is that I THINK it’s stable. Then, when I’m in the middle, I can always think that ‘well, it’s pretty bad up here but those poor schmucks in the back must be really feeling it’ and when I’m in the back I can think ‘well, if this is only as bad as it gets, the people in the middle must not be feeling anything at all’. Maybe I’m crazy but it really helps.
Ooh, Ambien is another good thing. I heartily endorse it, at least for flying. I took it 10 minutes after taking off from Chicago and was asleep within a half hour, before they even served dinner (at 11pm at night!). I was out for a full six hours and didn’t even have any weird dreams. I woke up with an hour and fifty-one minutes left in the flight. I was ecstatic. Here’s hoping I can repeat my success on the Frankfurt to Shanghai leg. That one might be so long though that I might take a second one right after I wake up from the first (just kidding Mom).
Ooh, I just checked the intinerary for traveling from Frankfurt to Shanghai and it’s 11 hours. Am I crazy for thinking that’s not too bad?
Connections and layovers can be pretty lame. Some airports, like Chicago’s O’Hare, are sometimes pretty difficult to figure out where to go. Some require you to walk a loooooong way with your luggage. Some don’t have any place to get something to eat, especially after 8pm on a Sunday night. The European airports don’t like to tell you more than 30 minutes in advance which gate is yours, requiring you to sit in a big open area with tons of other people constantly glancing up at a big board showing the flights. Too many airports require you to go through security when you’re just passing through. London Heathrow used to allow you to go through security with only one piece of carry-on luggage, meaning that if you were carrying two you had to somehow shove everything into one. Some airports are quiet but too many others have airport CNN blaring so loudly you can’t get away from it (Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson is the worst offender I’ve found). Some don’t have enough seating for departing flights, requiring people to sit in the hallway while waiting for the flight. European airports love to load everybody at once instead of calling out row numbers or groups to board singly. Everybody just gets up and tries to shove on (well not literally but you get the idea). I’m really interested to see how the Shanghai and Beijing airports are.
That reminds me, here’s a random video of a plane landing in St. Maarten. I love this video even though I don’t like flying because the runway pretty much abuts the beach:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksmDuXO_k6E
Or check out this mountain landing in Tegucigalpa, Honduras:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAxAso8xSo0
Anyway, the flights from Phoenix to Chicago to Warsaw to Budapest were ok. Didn’t see much of Warsaw since I was confined to the airport but was sucked into buying a hunk of shrink-wrapped cheese that I thought was some sort of meat pie. I paid with a credit card in their local currency, the zloty, without knowing what the exchange rate was. I hope it wasn’t too expensive because otherwise my boss might be mad since I expense all my food (one of the benefits of the travel is that we save money on the grocery bill while I’m gone). I only saw one woman with hair dyed so red you it was blinding but that was all I needed to remind me that, yes, I was in Eastern Europe again. Here are a couple of photos to give you an idea:
http://k53.pbase.com/u35/chmoss/upload/31674264.2004070606.12.16DSC_3615webbed.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/3/3115399_169c82b150.jpg
Monday evening found me in Budapest frantically searching for a lint roller. Since my luggage is lost so often (sorry, ‘delayed in transit’) and I had an important government meeting on Tuesday morning, I wore my suit sans jacket for the flights from Phoenix to Budapest. Problem was the blanket I used for sleeping on the Warsaw flight covered my shirt in lint. It was a wedding party present from Scott and Cheryl which made it kind of funny. Anyway, the grocery stores of downtown Budapest don’t sell lint rollers so I finally had to borrow some packing tape from the front desk of my hotel. What was really funny was that when I arrived to the hotel, the first thing I did was call Jennifer at work to ask her what to do, har! This was after asking the guys at the hotel’s front desk who recommended I go buy some detergent and put it in the washer; they were just as clueless as I was.
The luggage didn’t get lost though, at least not this time. Though someone had evidently rifled through it since the zipper was partially unzipped. Nothing was missing since thankfully I had everything of value with me.
The meeting went well and I caught a train with our attorney to Debrecen. No train shenanigans this time as the attorney did all the work. We arrived in Debrecen at 4, went to the factory and worked until 7:00. Worked from 8:30 to 8 yesterday but left at 6:30 tonight which was good. Problem is when you leave work late you sometimes don’t get to the grocery store before it closes and our apartment was almost out of toilet paper and soap. Luckily the local place closes at 9 so I made it last night. Tonight I went out with my friend Melinda to a local coffee bar for a hot chocolate and piece of cake. Apparently the cake was made of some sort of plant which, in sufficient quantities, gives you a mild high but Melinda didn’t know what the name is in English (I presume she knows the word ‘hemp’, eh). She also tried teaching me the fourteen Hungarian vowels but we stopped at é. Hungarian is very difficult but I’m trying to learn more.
It's cold and rainy in Hungary. I haven't seen the sun since descending into Warsaw. At least it's not freezing. Though then I might get to see some snow. Not this time it seems but sometime I will. I actually don't care about the cold and rain; it's the whole 'getting dark at 4:30 thing' that's really disconcerting. Good thing I'm working really late all the time.
I’ve been able to call Jennifer every night too which is good. It’s great especially when I hear BB barking in the background at Wilbur the next door neighbor’s cat (her name is really Precious but we prefer Wilbur). I used a company calling card in Budapest and the Magic Jack here in the Debrecen apartment (which makes it like a local call).
http://www.magicjack.com/7/index.asp
Pretty cool. Problem is Debrecen is seven hours ahead of Austin so I can’t call her until 11pm. Oh well. Tonight I can call her a little earlier, as soon as I finish this e-mail. Then I’ll pack up my schtuff again and call it a day. For China I’ll have to call her in the morning there I think which will be later in the evening Austin time.
Tomorrow I’ll be at the factory/office until 11:30am, then take a taxi 2 hours to Ferihegy airport in Budapest. Then it’s off to Frankfurt and then Shanghai. Shanghai should be interesting. Two people from the office have volunteered to guide me around on Sunday so I hope to see a ton of interesting stuff and be able to write an actual travel report for this trip. Brooks, our precocious five-year old neighbor, requested that I bring him back an eggroll. If you want me to look out for anything interesting to bring back, please let me know. No fake Rolexes though, sorry.
I hope to check in with you guys next week but we’ll see how that goes.
I hope all of you are doing well
About to be in transit again,
Matt
No comments:
Post a Comment