In the unlikely event...

And we are back!  Today was the first day of school here in Blago and Anne and Mark were there for at least the second half of it.  Unfortunately, our fearless protagonists are still battling the effects of time change and jet lag.  Actually, Mark is battling it - Anne is quite content with sleeping until early afternoon.  In any event, neither has Monday classes, so they just rolled in early afternoon to make an appearance.

Our trip from Dubuque to Blago was another in our list of activities that probably should have been pretty easy but turn out to be an adventure.  In this case, the problem is not where we expected it to be (or rather "when" we expected it to be - as in during the first 20 hours of the trip, but rather during the last 10), so we were almost totally unprepared for it.

We left Dubuque courtesy of the Sheila and Joe taxi service, made a pit stop at one of the finer dining establishments along the way (Culver's) and then on to O'Hare International Airport.  We arrived extremely early.  We had several reasons to do this.  First, to ensure that our luggage was within the strict weight requirements of the airline (this also allowed the airline to lose our luggage in an efficient manner that would not have been possible without our early arrival).  Second, aside from our checked luggage, we were traveling heavy.  Really heavy.  As in 12 pounds of Bugsy D. Cat.  For those of you who are unacquainted, Bugsy is a big, bad mamma jamma who has been living with Anne for 8 years or so.  On our initial trip to Blago, Bugsy did not have his paperwork in order, so he ended up staying with the aforementioned taxi drivers in DBQ.  Unfortunately for Mr. Bugsy, this arrangement was a short term solution only as the local resident of case de sheila y jose, an ancient feline by the name of Monty, had a dispute about an unpaid debt or something - the details are sketchy.  Long story short: hiss hiss, scratch scratch, fight fight and now the litter box is not big enough for the both of them, so to speak.  So Bugsy came over to Blago.  *Footnote - either the dispute was brought on by Monty or Bugsy has been 'scared straight' because we have not heard so much as a cross word between Bugsy and any local Bulgarian cats in the week or so that he has been in country.

12 pounds of international Bad Mamma Jamma

In any event, the three New Bulgarians (Anne, Mark and Bugsy, or "Bubbers" to his friends) boarded in Chicago.  They had purposefully reserved seats in the last row so as to minimize the amount of stress on the cat in the plane by making him unable to see and hear all of the movement around him (or, at least in an effort to minimize the noise he would make if he decided to go that way).  Unfortunately, this appears to be a common strategy among people who travel with pets.  No sooner had the safety belts for row 58 snapped into place (yeah, there's a row 58) than the passenger in the seat across the aisle made himself known.

Don't let the puppy-dog eyes fool you, this was a trained killer.

Ok, that's probably not true.  Apparently, this guy (brown sweater guy) had come to the U.S. and was bringing fido back to Germany.  We never got the story as to whether this pup was a show dog or what, but we did notice that he had his own seat.  And these flights are not cheap.

So, given these circumstances, there was palpable tension in the air, cats and dogs being naturally enemies since time immemorial.  It seemed only a matter of time until the fur would fly.  Except for one key fact: puppies and big, fat cats sleep.  A lot.  Both fell asleep and remained that way for most of the flight.  Actually, it was really a non-issue, but we wanted to post the picture of the puppy.

Early the next day, the flight landed in Munich.  Since Anne and Mark had a short layover (30 minutes), the flight attendants moved them to the business class cabin prior to landing and they were the first people off of the flight (the first class passengers will simply have to wait).  Anne and Mark sprinted across the airport and made their connecting flight to Sofia.  Hurrah!  After take-off, all seemed well, so Mark dozed off.  Upon waking, Mark noticed the plane coming in for a landing.  He also noticed a large body of water.  He had never noticed that body of water in Sofia before.  He also noticed that the flight attendant said "Welcome to Varna," which seemed like a funny thing to say since he was in Sofia, but he just chalked it up to strange local customs (Mark is unlikely to question local customs because, hey, at least no one was pushing him in the chest and yelling "Permisso!").

Well, as it turns out... he was in Varna.  Which is NOT Sofia.  Not even close.  Here is what happened: Have you ever been on a plane and heard that "In the unlikely event of a water landing..." announcement (which does not even make sense - doesn't "landing" require "land"?  Not to put too fine a point on this, but isn't the correct term "crashing into the damn ocean"?  But I digress...)?  Apparently, there are some things airplances cannot do.  For example, airplanes cannot travel in time, fly out of London when there is an inch of snow on the ground, fly anywhere near Iceland when there is a volcanic eruption or serve a meal that you might actually like to eat.  Well, it appears we can add "fog landing" to that list.  Apparently, the fog in Sofia was so bad that the pilot could not see the run way.

Sofia Airport on foggy day.  Photo Credit: Trolard Pillinski

In the unlikely event of all fog, all flights will be diverted, and they were.  Ours was sent to Varna.  For those of you unfamiliar with Bulgarian geography (I know there must be someone out there who is a bit rusty), Varna is a resort town and a place that Anne and Mark had planned on visiting, although maybe not on this day in this particular manner.   Varna is a port located on the Black Sea while Sofia is a mountain town in... well, the mountains.  Varna and Sofia are separated by about 470 kilometers, which is roughly.... about 3,000 miles, I think (seriously, when are they going to just give up on this stupid metric system?).  Anyway, we ended up waiting for buses which took us from Varna to Sofia (I question whether the route the buses took - shown in red dots on the map below - was the most direct, but I probably should avoid trying to micro-manage).

I am in no hurry to get on the road again.  Willie Nelson is a liar

After arriving at the airport in Sofia, Anne and Mark met up with a van from the University.  We did not have cell phone or internet access and it was the middle of the night, so how did this van end up there?  Who cares, we got a ride home.  (For the record, we did not "steal" a ride intended for someone else - although we may have if faced with that situation.  Actually, the van was aware that we and a visiting student were on that particular flight/bus and was sent to pick us up)

The dotted blue line shows the route we took from Sofia to Blago.  Although it was 3 am local time and pitch black darkness, the van driver decided to take the scenic route.

But we made it.  A few days later, our luggage arrived.  So all is well.  Tomorrow both Anne and Mark begin classes.  Let's get it on!