Silflay Hraka

Kehaar’s traveling again. I’m sitting in Charlotte Douglass International airport and I’m pleasantly surprised to find that they have free wireless internet access. I thought I’d use the free connection to post an update for those of you wondering where the hell I’ve been for the last few weeks.

The short answer is that I haven’t been anywhere, especially if you define “anywhere” as “anywhere in which I have both the time to blog and access to the internet”. I moved into a new apartment right before the new year and haven’t been able to wrangle an internet connection worth a damn since. I can get a tentative connection to an unsecured wireless network from one inconvenient corner of my home, but only in the later hours of the evening and only if I stand on one leg and hold the laptop at arm’s length. Blogging is not something I particularly desire to do in those circumstances.

Comcast has been out twice to install my internet service but hasn’t been able to get the cable connection working due to “faulty wiring” and “calling the wrong number instead of the number I gave them as my preference and thereby not keeping their damned appointment with me even though I took three hours off of work to wait for the bastards”. Deciding I’d given them enough of my precious time, I told them they could keep their “service” for all I cared. I can get other internet access and I don’t watch TV anyway. The cable was located in the dining room anyway and I would’ve had to run literally hundreds of feet of coaxial cable in order to get it to the den. I’m actually looking forward to not having television again. I am more productive without it.

On to AT&T DSL but they can’t seem to figure out which apartment I’m in and won’t be able to activate my service until Wednesday of next week at the earliest. This didn’t prevent me from going to Best Buy last night and buying a $75.00 DSL modem. I was a hair’s breadth from also buying a $280 dollar wireless router from Linksys but I managed to convince a buddy of mine to talk me out of it. In my move, I discovered that I own enough networking gear to maintain a small to medium sized business. Another router I do not need. But it was black and shiny and had lots of little antennas and looked a little bit like the robot from “Lost in Space” and I coveted it greatly.

I’ve been craving lots of technical gear lately. Routers, laptops, desktops, hard drives, media servers, wi-fi phones, LCD televisions…you name it, I’ve had an urge to buy it of late. I blame it on my mid-life crisis. I figure it’s probably a proxy for having a wife and kids. Kind of like getting a puppy. It’s something with which you can develop a relationship. So far I’ve been able to talk myself out of spending the four or five-thousand dollars it would take to buy everything I want but I know it’s just a matter of time. Since I won’t have cable, I’ll need to set up a sophisticated network in order to stream movies from my laptop to my television on those rare occasions that I get the jones to vegitate in front of the boob tube.

Anyway, I’m off to Boston now to visit Black Sheep and his family. Camp Girl * (formerly known as “Short & Curly” in this space and also known as “There’s No Way In Hell You’re Calling Me Short & Curly, I Don’t Care How F*cking Funny You Think It Is, Mister.”) will be there and we’ll attempt skiing tomorrow, if the weather allows. So far traveling has been better this time around, even though it started at 3:45 a.m. and even though the weather threatens snow. My gates have been closer and I even sat on the second row for once. I figure I’m doomed and I’ll be stuck in Boston on the return trip.

Stay tuned for more. Kehaar out.

I’m doing something I’ve never done before. I’m blogging from a train. I’ve never blogged from the train before because I’ve never really had a story to tell while riding on the train. Now I’m on the train and I have a story and so I’m blogging while riding the train.

To be honest, I’m not really blogging. I’ve got my luggage and my jacket and my laptop case and I just don’t feel like juggling all for the half-an-hour it takes to get to the airport. But I have a story to tell so I grabbed a pen and pad and I’m doing what men have done since time out of mind. I’m logging. I figure I’ll just transcribe it all later.

My story starts with a time and a place. The time is now, 6:45 p.m. on Friday, December 14th. The place is here, the Metro Atlanta Rail, North Avenue Station. (Technically, the story starts before now in a wholly different place but I don’t want to start then and there so I’m starting here and now.)

6:45 p.m. on a train probably doesn’t sound too bad to many of you. Many of you probably don’t have a flight to New York scheduled to leave at 7:07 p.m. I do.

Did I mention that it takes approximately 30 minutes to reach the airport by train? I’m pretty sure I did. It’s a critical piece of information for anyone traveling from, say, the Lenox Station MARTA stop to Hartfield-Jackson airport. It can be used to determine when one should leave work in order to catch the train in order to catch the plane to New York that leaves at 7:07 p.m.

I, having traveled from the Lenox Station MARTA stop to Hartsfield-Jackson airport on numerous occasions, know that it takes about 30 minutes to make the trip. Even with my limited math skills, I knew I had to leave work around 4:30 p.m. in order to give myself plenty of time to make the train to make the plane to New York that leaves at 7:07 p.m.

Many of you are probably wondering how I arrived at a 4:30 p.m. departure from work given that my flight doesn’t leave until 7:07 p.m. and the train only takes half-an-hour to traverse the distance between Lenox Station and Hartsfield-Jackson. My logic goes something like this: I like to arrive at the airport at least an hour before departure. This gives me time to check bags, get a boarding pass, get through security, buy a cup of coffee or a cookie or some ice cream, go to the bathroom and get to my gate before boarding. In my mind, I should’ve been at the airport at 6:07 p.m. So I should’ve been on the train by 5:37 p.m.

Of course, the train isn’t always waiting at the platform whenever I arrive. As a matter of fact, it almost never is. The Metro Atlanta Rail Transport Authority offers, by the way, what I consider to be the most useless commuter rail service of all time. Not only does it go nowhere you want to go, it goes there with maddening infrequency. On the positive side, there are always seats to be had.

Seriously, the economic dim-wittedness of the service is astounding. It’s a commuter rail service that isn’t targeted to commuters. It’s targeted to people who have no other form of transportation - i.e.- people who cannot afford other transportation and cannot afford to support a train service that actually goes places people want to go at times they want to go there. You don’t know how many times I’ve spent 15 to 20 minutes waiting on a train, stewing over the sheer stupidity of it. Seriously!

Given those experiences, I built in 20 minutes of time to wait for the train and planned on being there at 5:17 p.m. I didn’t make it. It’s now 6:59 p.m. and I’m at the Oakland City station. The plane should’ve begun boarding about 15 minutes ago. I don’t think I’m going to make it.

Thankfully, the plane is delayed! There’s bad weather somewhere according to…give me a second. I’m going to New York to visit a new girl, one never before mentioned on this blog. I must come up with some pseudonym by which I can refer to her. Must protect the names of the innocent, you know. I could call her NYC as she is from New York City. By the same token, I could call her Manhattan. But lots of people live in those places and it just doesn’t seem right.

I could call her Shorty. That would be appropriate. But she’s actually taller than Little Irish Stout. (Most people are, honestly.) I could call her Curly. She used to wear her hair in these supra-curly locks. But she wears it straight now. We’ll call her…damn. I’m drawing a blank. I used to be so good at doling out nicknames. I guess we’ll just call her Blank until I can come up with something better. I’m sure she won’t like it and I’m sure I’ll get in trouble for it but them’s the breaks. You don’t choose the nickname. The nickname chooses you.

Anyway, Where was I? Oh, yeah. My flight is delayed until 8:24 p.m. because of bad weather or something. This strikes me as odd because I work for The Weather Channel and I checked the weather in New York and Atlanta before leaving work and it’s supposed to be clear at both the departure and arrival points. I even checked Chicago’s weather because that can sometimes affect Atlanta air traffic but didn’t see anything worth a delay. I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, however. The flight’s delayed and I think I’m gonna’ make it.

I might even have time to pee and grab a cup of coffee. It’s a good thing,too. I gots to go.

More soon. We’re at the airport and, for those keeping track of these things, it’s 7:10 p.m.

***

Short & Curly. That’s her nickname. It came to me as I ascended the escalator into the terminal. Not only is it descriptive, it is, in my humble opinion, really f*cking funny. It’s brilliant! She’ll hate it, of course, She’ll want some name that drips with romance and sentiment. I’ve given her a nickname that just drips. Surely it’s an inspiration from God.

I am now writing to you from seat 20F of Airtran flight 343 from Atlanta to LaGuardia. I made it, but only just. The plane was not delayed until 8:24 p.m. It was delayed until 8:03 p.m. Something must’ve been miscommunicated because the couple sprinting down the terminal with me mentioned 8:24 as well. Tricksy airline. We ran up just as the last few people were boarding. If I hadn’t gotten my boarding pass online earlier today, I would not be here. Any delay would’ve meant missing the plane.

Well, any further delay. I breezed comparatively quickly through security only to get off the shuttle at the wrong terminal. I read 11A on my boarding pass. What I should’ve read is D11A. Imagine my shock at arriving at the gate to find a Delta flight to Philadelphia waiting for me. Quick about face. Back to the shuttle. Why are these kinds of things always happening to me?

And why is it that the gate you need is always the one farthest away from where you are? Seriously, does anyone fly from the gates closest to the terminal entry point? I see people occupying seats in those areas but I think they are there for display purposes only. My gate is always far away. 11A was just over half way down the terminal, which means I had to cover the length of the terminal just to get there and back.

D11A occupied the same position in the terminal. I cover another half a terminal thinking that I’ve got just about 15 minutes to spare. Oddly enough, when I get there, there is another flight to Philadelphia waiting for me. What the hell is up with that? Do that many people want to fly from Atlanta to Philadelphia? Who knew?

My boarding pass clearly states D11A. Where the hell is my flight? (Okay, maybe it didn’t clearly state D11A. That’s how I ended up at 11A in the first place. But it did, upon further perusal, state D11A.) The attendant informs me that my flight has been moved to gate D2 “if it hasn’t left already”. This is when I began to think it best to run. Gate D2 is literally the last gate in the terminal. It’s even further away than D1. What the hell is up with that? I swear, I think they just like to see me run.

And why the hell is it that the people in front of me never seem to be in the same kind of hurry? They’re all strolling casually along like they have all the time in the world to get coffee or cookies or ice cream. They even seem to have time to go to the bathroom. Do I have time to go to the bathroom? Hell no. I’m racing through the terminal like OJ Simpson before he killed his wife, trailing streams of wetness. Bathrooms and near gates are for other people, apparently.

But I digress.

The whole point of the story is that traffic in Atlanta was worse than I’ve ever seen it. A commute that takes an average of 30 minutes and, on a bad day, takes me an hour and fifteen minutes, took me two hours. I couldn’t believe it. The one day I have a flight to catch and it takes me 45 minutes longer than it’s ever taken me to get home from work. Can you believe it?

But I did catch my plane, so I guess the charm hasn’t worn off completely.

It’s now 8:20 p.m. I’m on the plane. We’re in the air, headed for New York.

The “fasten your seatbelt” light is on.

I have to pee.

Typical.

Sorry, all. I’ve been in Santa Fe for four days for a conference and haven’t been able to post. Here’s a picture of the Sandia Mountain range as viewed from the bank of the Rio Grande to tide you over until someone can post something else. Notice the moon hanging at the top right. I thought that was a nice touch.

If you’re like me, you’ll search nine or ten travel websites before you book a flight. You’re not loyal to any airline or any website. You don’t necessarily care when you fly, as long as it fits your schedule. All you want is the absolute best price you can find.

That being said, my latest website for the best ticket prices is CheapoAir.com. The site promises to save 65% off published fares. I’m not good at math and I’m sure exactly what the published fares might be since there are so many out there, but the site did save me about $50 bucks over Yahoo Travel, the next best rate I could find. Yahoo in turn saved me about $50 bucks over Expedia, which saved me $15 to $20 bucks over several other sites like Orbitz.

HotWire.com would’ve saved me big bucks if I could travel at any time of day, but I’m constrained by work hours and travel time to and from the airport. Priceline’s prices were pedestrian at best. So was the site functionality, to be honest. My old standby, CheapTickets.com” was down for maintenance.

Kayak.com was pretty useless. I used to think that site was pretty good.

Anyway, just thought I’d share. Thanks to CheapOAir.com for letting me spend the weekend fishing at Cape Hatteras with the boys.

Making peace with and getting the f*ck out of Romania

Defying my urge to dwell on the negative, I started to compile an Honor Roll of people/places/things that gave me joy while in Romania. I’m proud to say the list became surprisingly long. However, as we all know, through pain, comes humor. And my dedication to being choke-on-your-spittle hilarious, just for you, inspired me to simultaneously develop the Dishonorable Rat Bastard Roll. Those of you reading this blog for a while will know that the latter list virtually compiled itself.

In order to keep a fair and diplomatic balance, I will alternate the two. So, without further ado…

Honor Roll: The train system that defies the odds and is nearly always on time.
Dishonorable Rat Bastard Roll: The train cleaners that can’t seem to rid the passenger compartments of the garment-infusing urine pong.

HR: The farmers whose hard work makes for stunning vistas from nearly every road.
DRBR: The jackass civil engineer who hired his high school drop out son in-law over a pool of qualified candidates to head the city’s street resurfacing project that took all summer, which resulted in streets that lasted nearly two weeks before fissures, potholes and general collapse ensued.

When I went to Romania in 2005, my roommate for the trip, The Greek, developed a morning ritual. He’d sidle out of bed (he was good at sidling) and shuffled over to the window to see what kind of weather the day might hold. I don’t know why he bothered looking. I could’ve told him what the weather was like without leaving my own cot. It was early March and we were in Eastern Europe. The weather on any given day was bitterly cold and probably damp and miserable to boot. He still insisted on checking every morning anyway.

As he stood at the window looking out onto the trash-filled alley that was our view, he’d stretch and utter the first words of the day: “Man. What a shit-hole.”

This is how I woke up every day we were in Bucharest.

It was true too. Bucharest was (and possibly still is) a muddy, ugly, concrete pile of Soviet Industrial Era crap. The aforementioned alley was not just full of trash. It also held a pride of horny, feral cats that would howl and yowl at ungodly hours. You could never tell if they were having sex, killing some unfortunate rodent or possibly a combination of the two.

When we left our hotel and ventured out into the city, the sidewalks were practically impassable. They were either puddled with mud, crowded with cars or littered with feces from the packs of mangy strays that guarded every pile of garbage. Stepping into the streets to avoid the standing water or the dog crap was taking your life into your own hands. There were no discernable traffic laws in Bucharest. Drivers in tiny cars sped down narrow streets lined with other tiny cars. Intersections were fantastic free-for-alls in which the boldest went first and other drivers, less sure of their God’s benevolence, leaned impotently on their horns.

The one thing that was good about Romania were the people. The writer above obviously had some negative experiences but he was also in Romania a lot longer than I. I do know that corruption was and is a problem and the Romanian friend who sent me the link refuses to hang out with most other Romanians on the basis that they are an amoral, backstabbing bunch of drama queens, but the Romanians I’ve met have been universally warm and friendly. They certainly were more friendly than either the Hungarians or the French. It’s just that their chief city is a large, unattractive, stinking, steaming turd.

My own Romanian Honor Roll:

*To the woman behind the counter at the local market who attempted gamely to communicate with me in Romanian when I attempted to buy two beers, my first purchase using the local currency. The total came to 33,000 Romanian leu. I’d not previously had the opportunity to examine the denominations of the notes in my wallet. I was at the head of a long line of people trying to buy fruit and bread for their dinners. I stared at the wad of paper in my hand and uncertain of my next move, I held out two hands full of cash, hoping she’d choose appropriate notes.

She took a single 50,000 bill from the 2 million plus I had in my hands and rolled her eyes. I was to find out later that I had approximately two months salary for the average Romanian in my hands at that time. The long line of small, hungry people stared blankly at my act of American stupidity and I blushed as I realized my own comparative wealth. I think of that moment when I ponder why people yearn for America so badly.

*To the grizzled old man on the street selling flowers. He didn’t speak but he held out tiny bundles to us as we passed. I’ll never forget the grateful look in his eyes as I gave him the approximate equivalent of $.50 cents for three little bouquets. He brightened in a way that suggested to me that he’d gotten the better of the deal by far but he’ll never know how priceless was the gift he gave me in that moment.

* To the taxi driver who carted us from one side of Bucharest to the other. He spoke little English and we spoke no Romanian. We wrote the address of our hotel on a slip of paper, he examined it, nodded and we piled in. I compliment him in English on the lovely pine aroma of his cab and he nods hesitantly, obviously comprehending none of what I’m saying. To humor myself, I babble on endlessly. He nods and smiles and tells me several times he doesn’t speak English. This only drives me to talk louder and faster. I play the Ugly American to a T. I am greatly amused.

Eventually we begin to wonder where in Bucharest we are. None of us recognize any of the sites. Turns out the driver wasn’t familiar with the address we’d given him after all. After a quick huddle with another driver, we turn around and go back in the direction we’d come. Forty-five minutes after we set foot in the cab, we’re finally home again. We owe the cab-driver 150,000 leu but give him 200,000 for being such a good sport. He drives away and we finally do the math. 45 minute taxi ride in Bucharest? 8 bucks. Photo with the cabbie? Priceless.

* To the staff of “Dracula’s Castle”, in Bran who, even though we arrived at the castle on International Women’s Day, a national holiday in Romania, went out of their way and opened the doors so we could spend forty-five minutes touring the castle before leaving for Hungary.

*To the driver of our bus. For four days he drove a group of loud, obnoxious Americans around the city and across the countryside. He was there to pick us up at the airport, there in the morning when we finished our breakfast and there in the evening to take us to our classes. He drove us through the narrow, crowded streets of Bucharest and handled that bus in ways that excited our admiration. He drove us out of the city and into the Carpathians and drove us home again when we were all hung over and tired. In the end, he drove us to the airport and wept openly when we tipped him every bit of Romanian currency that remained to us. It was probably enough to feed his family for months.

* To the owners of and waiters and waitresses in the Romanian restaurants we visited. They smiled genuine smiles and went out of their way to make sure we had food, wine and liquor aplenty. Their obvious pride in serving Romanian cuisine to us was a sight to warm the heart.

* To the Romanian’s dad who dreams of coming to America so he can bag groceries and collect shopping carts in the parking lot. He couldn’t believe people were paid to do such things.

* To the Romanian’s mom who, the first time she stepped foot in Harris Teeter, stood in the produce section with tears streaming down her cheecks as she took in the plentitude around her. She is also convinced that American’s are fined if their lawns are not perfectly maintained. Lawns in Romania mostly consist of a square of dirt surrounded by a fence.

And, finally, to the Romanian who, full of sincerity and warmth and sometimes righteous indignation, has proven to be an honest, faithful friend for many years now and who proudly celebrated her first 4th of July as an American citizen this past summer. Thanks for the link and thanks for showing me what wonderful people Romanians can be, even if you don’t like them!

Previous Travels with Kehaar
* Travels with Kehaar: Bran, Romania
* Travels with Kehaar: Paris