Is This Any Time to Fly?

12:01am and we are in the lobby meeting John for our last taxi ride, this one to the airport. So far, in two days, John has earned 7,500 (75 euros) from our venturing around the city. When he says he hates to see us go, you know there is sincerity in those words.

On the way to the airport, we stop at three different gas stations, the first two are out of gas. This is the second time today we were with John when he had to get gas, making us wonder why he doesn't fill up once and be done with it? 

Nairobi's airport is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. What we are uncertain about is how early the ticket counters open for checking in and getting boarding passes. Before you can enter the terminal, you have to go through security. We lucked out, the Turkish Air counters were open and there were already about twenty people ahead of us. Slow does not describe the young man who checked us in. We were at the counter for a good twenty minutes, while I am watching the clerks around us moving people through like assembly lines.

Once we are released with boarding passes in hand, we head for the escalator upstairs to find the Diners Club lounge, but cannot get to the escalator without showing our boarding passes. The Diners Club lounge is the same as that used for fifteen airlines. We walk in ready to present our DC card to the reception as we have done dozens of times on past trips. Sitting behind the counter is an older woman, most likely in her late 50s or early 60s. Her skin tone resembles fresh brewed coffee with 6 drops of cream added, but as your eyes move upward, you can't miss the hair. It was the color of a Tequila Sunrise, which was pretty appropriate since her hair was pointing out of her head in all directions like rays of the sun in a child's drawing. It could have been an overdone Statue of Liberty style. Instead of the crown, she went whole head crazy. I hand her my card, she takes it and immediately returns it to me. Now, I have done this routine enough times to know they swipe the card or at the bare minimum, write the number down. She did neither, just mumbled "We donwnl aerjow ehrh thrthgj ljadjfl". Excuse me? It took three times and the two of us listening, concentrating and as a last resort, recording the comment for instant and continual replay until we had it translated. 

Finally, we got the message, but we did not like it at all. They do not take Diners Club with a MasterCard logo, which in fact is every Diners Club issued in the US. The only reason we keep the Diners Club is for the airport lounge access and the miles, but it seems both services are shrinking rapidly. We were refused entry in Amsterdam's lounge stating that DC ended the contract. We went round and round with the woman. I even showed here the print out from the DC website showing the Nairobi lounges listed, but to no avail. We had over 2 hours before our flight; we had our lounge time planned. It is so much more comfortable than 'out there'.  We succumbed to paying our way in at $30 a person. The rationalization was that we thought were were going to have to pay a departure tax to leave Kenya. We did in Tanzania. Since we saved on that fee, we could splurge on the lounge. It was 12:30 in the morning, the flight was rotating between 3:40 and 4:45 every 7 minutes, so it looked like a long night. Heck, we did not have to pay for the night in the hotel, so this is also like our hotel. You can be sure now that I am going on the warpath against Diners Club. I will be posting everywhere warning people of the shrinking of perks while the annual fee goes up. With 2 other MasterCards, I don't need this one any longer.

When they called our flight, we had to go through security again at the gate. We travel wearing boots, Budapest is cold both leaving and returning. They are too bulky to pack and put on when we arrive home, but they are also a pain for security. We know they set off the alarms; it is the eyelets. I started to just carry them around while wearing disposable socks I had left over from some other airlines long distance flight.

Ironically, the Turkish Air flight from Nairobi to Istanbul was showing The Time Traveler's Wife, but they had the old drop down screens. I did not think I would stay awake anyway, so skipped it. We had to change planes in Istanbul with a 3 hour layover. There was no Diners Club lounge to test out, so we went to Gloria Jeans for a coffee. Knock me over, $16 for two coffees, one large, one medium. Yikes!

The next flight was just as uneventful, but only 1 hour and 50 minutes, so no movies at all. 

When we arrived home, the kitchen window was open and the window on the front door too. Balazs were in the kitchen cleaning. He had been staying here on and off with our blessings, but had not cleaned up after himself along the way. He thought we were not returning until tomorrow, so had designs on cleaning, grocery shopping, and preparing a dinner for us. We messed up those plans and he has to work tonight anyway. All is good.

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Want Cleaning With That?

We have an area run in our living room. It is 2 meters by 3 meters. For the longest time I have wanted it to be dry cleaned, but our favorite Shirt Express would not do anything that large. The owner told us to "just try" another cleaner. Easy for him to say, being Hungarian. Other dry cleaners do not speak English, so that involves getting a translator and then transporting the carpet. Our darling Balazs and his roommate Tommy took pity on us a year ago and made it their mission to get our carpet to the cleaners for us. That was a year ago. Being Italian, but much out of practice, I took me a year to guilt Balazs into getting the thing to the cleaners. He called a cleaner for their opening times, came over and picked up the carpet, refusing taxi fare to get it there. He carried the carpet on his shoulders and off he went. When he got there, the place had closed five minutes before his arrival. Rather than return it to us, he continued walking around until he found a cleaner that was still open and dropped it off. Approximate cost for cleaning, 5,000 Huf. Quite a deal. When he went back a week later, they told him it was going to be 9,000 Huf. He asked why? They responded with "We did not know it would have to be cleaned on both sides." Not only is it brighter, but it is 3 inches longer than went it left. Welcome to Hungary.

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Back to the Future

When I booted up the computer this morning, it immediately wanted to install Internet Explorer 8, though I have had it already. I let it go, but it needs to do a restart afterward. The computer would not restart. I tried getting to the Task Manager, which opened, but displayed on the screen frozen as a Floridian in summer in San Francisco. Nothing! I had to manually shut down, trying to start in the last known good configuration. It would not boot. I tried it in Safe Mode to do a System Restore, but SR would not even open. The CPU was 100%, so it was a no go. I text messaged the computer tech, while I painstakingly did my Voodoo computer ritual, performed my most eloquent pagan technology dance, and lit candles around the hard drive, with worry and rosary beads in hand. Why leave anything to chance? Forty minutes later, something gave the boot the boot and it started up. I was able to do a system restore to last night after Balazs fixed the connections. Thankfully, I had set a restore point then. Perhaps having a typewriter, a ream of paper, and carbons would be great back-up insurance.

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Electro Man Strikes Again

After weeks of hearing Ron whine about how slow the kitchen computer was downloading Comedy Central, I gave in and called out computer tech. Admittedly, the last straw was the fact that my network connection would suddenly disappear, leaving me in the black hole of reality with no access to cyberspace. Once you have tasted cyber-surfing, there is a point of no return. Our adopted child, nephew, student, side-kick, whatever his moniker du jour happens to be, Balazs came over to get things off of his "To Do" list. First, go with me to the frame shop to have three lithographs re-matted. This had been on my list since we bought them four years ago. Check it off! Done, they will be ready on Wednesday. Two, go to Office Depot to buy a new computer chair. After testing chairs that ranged in cost from $50-300.00, I settled for one that felt comfortable, was not unreasonable and did not lop to one side like my current chair. I thought they had free delivery if you spent a certain amount. Balazs thought I was bringing him to carry the chair home. I really needed his translator skills to find out color options and assorted picky matters. They indeed have free delivery, plus for $4.00 extra, they will assemble the chair, which just happened to be on sale. After I paid, the security officer came up to us and said something to Balazs. I thought she wanted to inspect my bag. She took me over to a large cardboard box, asking that I close my eyes. I had to reach in and grab a 'prize'. It was a magazine in Hungarian, a prize for Balazs. Having given me the router, B-man felt responible for getting it fixed. He worked on it for three hours, before we made him stop to have dinner with us. After dinner, he finally got it working properly. I e-mailed out tech guy to cancel. This is why we love our dear Balazs.

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Poof, No Electric

Well if you remember, it was less than two weeks ago that we had to call in the electrician to fix a circuit that blew out. We were without the fridge and microwave and all of the under cupboard lights. He had it fixed within minutes, but last night, Ron was microwaving and poof, out it went again. Calling Balazs, the student wonder, he placed the call to the electrician who will return here today at 3:00 pm to fix it yet again. He also told Balazs there would not be a charge since it was "under warranty" from the last time he was here. Amazing!!!

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The Communiqués of R to the 2nd Power 10

Okay, really there is no good news, well that is not really true either. I took that e-mail you sent about being kinder and massaging me upon request, had it blown up to poster size and it is plastered on the bedroom wall. Smaller copies are super glued around the apartment for ready reference and within pointing distance. The message from Vodafone was that we were late with our payment and had one day to pay it or the mobile service would be shut off. To turn it back on would involve a penalty. I had to prove I made the payment through Citibank because Citibank takes up to 3 days to transfer the money to Vodafone. Since I cannot use the printer, I had to make a picture of the Citibank payment, put it on a removable disk and then take it to the Internet Café to be printed. After it was printed, I had to have it faxed to Vodafone. They would not do it via e-mail, which would have made my life easier. That done, Balazs and I went for a walk. His foot is bothering him so he wanted a beer. I could not handle a beer without falling asleep within seconds. We went to Spinozas. He downed 4 tall beers and I two coffees. We were there for over 3 ½ hours. I had just gotten home at 6:00 when my phone went off and it was Ben. He was in the neighborhood and wanted to drop off DVDs. He just returned from Poland. He showed up at 6:45 and stayed to talk until 9:45. THEN I was able to get something to eat at 10:15, but was too tired, so ate cold cuts that the guests won't eat since they are vegetarians.

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Showing off

I had great pride in showing the new laptop to my class today. They were so excited for all of us. Our rooms at the university have cable Internet access, so I just need to get the Information Systems office to turn on the outlet in my classroom. With an Ethernet cable plugged in we can use the Internet in class with a projector we already have. It will be perfect; for some classes, we blog as a class and for others I am using the Writing Lab at Colorado State University. Now when there are questions or concerns about how to navigate or do something, I demonstrate it right in class and project it on the wall. On the home front, we still don't have electricity in the kitchen. Balazs called the building management's electrician, but said the man told him he was too busy to be bothered with such a small job. Later he called the manager again was given another name for another electrician. This one was more gracious and came over tonight at 5:00. He will be back tomorrow at the same time to fix everything. Fingers crossed! In another vein, I was contacted by another editor from Frommer's, this one the editor for the Eastern Europe book. She asked if I would be interested in updating the Hungary chapter for that book, knowing that I just finished the full book and the Hungary chapter of the rail guide. The deadline is July 15th, giving me plenty of time. Of course I accepted it.

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The New Laptop

The laptop I ordered for my use at school was supposed to be ready today, but I was not venturing there until Balazs was out of classes and could call for me. He called me at 3:30 to say his class was canceled and he would go with me to pick it up. They called him at 9:00 am to say it was ready. They had it hooked up when we arrived to show me that not only had my Windows installed, but also had it updated. The most important part was that the keyboard was an English one, which is why I had to special order it in the first place. I was charged. The B-man came home with me to reinstall Windows on the new desktop that was corrupted when the electric went out. I had to set him up in the hallway; we still don't have the electric fixed in the kitchen. I started loading programs on the laptop. We were like computer central. It was a good thing he was here. I installed programs that I had on disk and the strangest thing happened. When they installed, they showed up in Hungarian. The programs are English programs, so Balazs had to help me change the language setting back to English. If something can go wrong with anything electrical, it will happen to me.

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Children's Railway

If Earl had his way, he would sit around the apartment all day. He will not venture out on his own at all. He keeps saying "I just to see you guys." Well, we guys don't want to sit around all day, we have things to do. We have to modify them to include him or to not ignore the fact that he is here, which is a burden. His last visit was two years ago, but Ron was in Iowa while he was here and I was left to entertain alone. Ron suggested we do the Children's Railroad for something to do. It was a good idea for a refresher for me to write about it for the Frommer's guide. Earl was nonplussed. His mantra is "I'll do whatever you guys want to do." We guys want a guest who is independent. After we took him to purchase his transportation pass, we took the subway to the tram, to the Cogwheel, to the Children's Railroad at the end of the line. We had 45 minutes to wait for the next train. Ron had to leave to teach a lesson and I had to get home for a guest coming. The ride was pleasant and for the most part, the train was empty. The lush green trees and the sometime views of the Buda Hills made the trip worthwhile, though Earl was there for the ride. When we stopped and a large group of children boarded, he wished out loud that they would board the other car. They must have heard his thoughts as they started into our car, but changed directions and went to the other one. At the end of the line, Ron took off for his lesson; Earl and I went to get something for dinner and then home. Our guest's plane was late and he did not show until two hours after his scheduled time. I was having problems installing MS Office 2007. The product key would not take. I also received a letter from the district office, making me nervous from the few words I could read. I called my student Balazs and he came to my rescue. The letter was only a notice that the district could not assist us with our gas bill since I did not complete the form. Office 2007 was a greater challenge. After forty minutes of fiddling, trying different methods, griping, swearing, and brainstorming, we had a "DUH" moment. The number we were trying to enter for the program key was not the key. The key was actually on the inside back of the plastic box that housed the software. Neither of us had noticed it and there was no literature to suggest our looking there for it. Once we had it, it loaded fine, but the next glitch was that Office 2003 had to be deleted first. Ugh! We watched a movie after dinner, not a great departure from our evening routine.

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Christmas in Vienna

Ron and I took one of my students, Balazs, to Vienna for the day. He is my unofficial Teaching Assistant and is continually looking for work from us to keep him busy. He is over here whenever we need something translated. Many times, he will stop by just to be social. It amazes me how many hours he can spend with me a day and then later call and see if I want to go for a coffee with him. He is the most determined student I have ever met, who wants to perfect his English. He even makes his roommate speak to him only in English, though his roommate is Hungarian. He really is a delight to be around. We both enjoy him immensely.

Sunday morning, the three of us met with Lynn the Fulbrighter and off we went to Keleti train station for our great adventure to Vienna. Our train was at 9:10 and we found our reserved seats in a smoking compartment since all of us smoke. Ron, Lynn, and Balazs played Scrabble on the way and I read my book. Neither of them had been to Vienna before and we have been there dozens of times, so it was exciting to see it through their eyes. Our mission was to see the Christmas markets and decorations more than the sights.

We arrived a little past noon, the sun was shining brightly, and the sky was clear. We found the first street market within minutes of our arrival. We putzed and puttered at the booths and then decided to stop at a restaurant for lunch. We knew that hot wine was waiting for us back outside, so we just had a snack rather than a meal.

When we bought our wine, the man let us skip paying the 2 Euro deposit on the mugs since I told him we promised to return them. Across from where we were standing, there was a clown making balloon animals. Balazs and Lynn were joking about wanting one and after fifteen minutes, the clown came over to Lynn. He started hitting on her and told her that he does not meet to many women his size or shorter. He made her a dog balloon in pink.

We took them to two of the palaces on the outside. There were Christmas fairs at both. Our public transport was included in

our train ticket fee, so we covered lots of territory walking or by taking trams. By the time we needed to head back to the last train at 8:00 pm, we were tired, but feeling fulfilled. It was an excellent day filled with laughs and merriment with good people. Who could ask for more at the holidays?

These are Ron's pictures.

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Good-bye and Good Luck!

This seems to be our week for saying good-byes, one sadly anticipated and the other unexpectedly soon. On Monday, we took our adopted nephew out for a good-bye dinner. He was leaving today for Trinity College in Hartford, CT. Balazs earned a full scholarship provided by the Kellner Foundation who will be paying not only his room, board, and tuition, but also a monthly stipend, a new Dell laptop computer, and a travel stipend as well.

As exciting as this was for him and we were thrilled he would get this opportunity, we were also psychologically devastated at the thought of his being gone for a year. He had been our rock in dealing with all thing Hungarian that we have not been about to circumvent on our own. He has shared dinners with us at our home as well as in restaurants; he attends classical music events with Ron, because I will not. He is closer to us than my own nephews have been. He calls for advice, stops over just to chat, and there is a close bond that I have not had with any of my relatives in over thirty years.

Trying to put on a brave face, we took him to one of our favorite restaurants in the city, Troffea. Troffea is an all-you-can-eat restaurant with class. You are able to select your beverage from sodas, mineral waters, beer, wine, or champagne. The selections of food range from a choice of five soups, to dozens of salads, five prepared entrees, a refrigerated case with marinated meats that they will grill on the spot for you, a dozen vegetables, and as many desserts. We generally reserve this restaurant for special occasions since it is easy to go overboard, but this was as special an evening as they get.

Balazs was to leave Friday morning. We all knew it would not be appropriate to have all of us bawling at the airport as he waved good-bye, so we thought Monday night was our chance. Alas, he teaches through our business, so he had to return on Thursday night to give us his time sheet, so once last chance.

On Thursday night, we received a call from Angela, the former Fulbrighter who was here doing research and studying Hungarian. Due to a family emergency, she had to leave for home days sooner than planned. She was leaving on Saturday. Now we had to prepare an abrupt good-bye with someone we had spent quality time.

Balazs spent a few hours with us on Thursday night, all of us postponing the inevitable. There were no tears. We all refused to own up to our emotions. Truth be told, he is planning on returning to Hungary for Christmas and spring break. I have told him as strongly as I would my own, this is a mistake. He should be making friends and spending the holidays traveling and soaking up the US culture. I told him that I hope that what would be ultimately best for him is what would be.

We were going to go for one last dinner with Angela tonight, but our other favorite restaurant Paprika was hopping and without a reservation, it would have been a long wait. We returned to Troffea once again. Now I have to recite ‘diet’ 1,000 times before I can eat again.

Angela, sorry you had to leave so suddenly, but thanks for the good times we shared while you were here.

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