David's Christmas Visit
All I can say, this was a
very exhausting, month-long tour of Europe.
Something, I don't think I will attempt any time soon, but I'm so glad
that I did it. My recommendation
is, do it while you can. There is
so much to see outside the USA. I knew this after 8 years in the Navy and traveling all over
the world, but never to Europe or the Mediterranean areas. That is until this Spring/Summer when
Europe was removed from my areas left to visit.
Even though I had to get
up at 5:00am to be driven to the Copenhagen airport, it was somewhat of a
relief, knowing I was just hours from home and my own bed. However, it wasn't smooth sailing yet,
by any means.
Europe is known for its
on-time rail travel, but air travel is much the same as in the States. My flight was scheduled for 7:30am the
last time I checked, but when we got to the airport ticket counter, it had been
changed to 7:15am. We arrived about
6:30am and found only three counters open.
One line did not move at all while I was in another line. A large family with lots of baggage was
the problem there. It took me about
20 minutes to work to the front of the line.
I was so relieved to get my boarding pass and head to customs. Waving goodbye to Henrik, the only one
to actually see me off from the airport at such an early hour, I headed up the
escalator to customs and my flight to Zürich.
Yes, I said Zürich. I was doubling back on my travels. My travel agent found this was much
cheaper than going back through London, matter of fact almost free. It added about an hour to my trip, but
hey, money is money. Once at the
gate, I found that the flight was being delayed 45 minutes because of a problem
in Zürich. Now comes the problem
that bothered me for the next couple of hours.
Leaving Copenhagen at
8:00am, a 2-hour flight to Zürich would get me there at 10:00am, barring no
other delays. However, my
transatlantic flight was due to leave Zürich at 10:00am for Atlanta. The stewardess said there were several
people on my flight that needed to catch that outbound flight as well and the
airline had been notified. I was on
Swiss Air all the way to Atlanta as a code-share carrier for Delta in Europe. We landed and arrived at the gate right
at 10:00am. Unfortunately, I was a
terminal away and many gates down each one.
Arriving at the terminal,
I again had to go through customs. But this time, I was stopped and one of my two carry-on bags
was searched. They didn't say what
for, but apparently didn't find what they were looking for, but it delayed me,
what seemed like hours, but only about 5 minutes.
At the gate, I had to go
through Passport Control, no big deal, but another minute or two. The gate was still open as I could see
people going down the ramp. I was
afraid that it would close at any second, leaving me in Zürich overnight. I thought, that might not be too bad, I
would request a day or two later flight and head back to Kempten, since it was
only 3 hours away. What a surprise
they would have to find me back in their house for another night or two.
But, that was not to be. I got on the plane. Matter of fact, it did not leave until
almost 10:40am, but nobody seemed to mind as there was a good time buffer built
into transatlantic flights. I was
so relieved to be on the next to last leg of my flight home. I knew I had almost 2 hours in Atlanta
to change planes and from Terminal E something to A something. I really didn't care, or worry, unless
we were diverted, for some reason, and could not land in Atlanta due to weather
as often happens in the summer.
Atlanta was a welcome
sight. We were ahead of schedule
even after leaving 40 minutes late. I
had time to do many things, but I just headed straight for my next gate. I was beginning to tire of all the
travel and just wanted to be ready to get on 1663 and head to Little Rock. This flight pulled back from the gate
exactly at 4:00pm, the scheduled time.
Arriving in Little Rock
about 10 minutes early, I was not really expecting to find my ride home waiting,
but wanted to see them waiting anyway. No
one was there. I went down to baggage claim, even though I did not have any
checked luggage. No one was there. I sat down in a spot where I could see
everybody coming in or out of the airport terminal. Still no one is sight to meet me. I headed to the nearest phone and called my ride to see where
he was. Seems he was waiting not
far away for me to call so he would not have to pay to park. He forgot that I didn't have my cell phone and had to use a
pay phone.
Anyway, in just a couple
of minutes we were on the way to find some food.
I was home by about 8:00pm and found that the captive cats had not done
too much damage. I did what I could
to restore order and do some unpacking. But
a shower and good night's sleep were next in sight.
I had already taken the
next 3 days off so I could take care of a month's backlog of mail, newspapers,
yard work and whatever else needed doing before returning to work on the
following Monday morning. I had
been gone from the office for a full four weeks. Never before had I been gone for more than 5 days in a row.
A few days later, I went
to Paris, Arkansas to give Thomas' former host family some recent pictures, a
video and a letter he gave me to give to them.
We talked for about an hour. They
confirmed what I learned. Thomas
was a super young man. They hated
to see him leave just like I didn't want to leave Kempten. One thing I found we had in common was
an intense love of Thomas.
Thomas plans to return to
the States next Fall and attend Arkansas Tech.
That means that I hope he will be living with me. David, the younger brother, will come
next Fall, as well, to go into the 11th grade at Russellville High School. We are in the process of finding a host
family for him locally instead of using the normal services that charge the big
fee. I have a couple of families
that are interested, but we don't have to make a decision for several months
yet.
My stay there was just
short of awesome. I hated to leave
and head to Copenhagen, but I felt that I must as Visti's birthday was now just
days away and he was leaving for his alternative military service the day after
his birthday. Had it not been for
all that, I would have extended my stay in Kempten a day or two.
I'm glad I saw Paris and Zürich,
but would have enjoyed the extra days in Kempten as well. But, all is not lost. I am going back in August 2001 for 10
days, or more. When I head home, I
should be bringing one or both of the boys back with me.
I have told this story so
many times, especially about the meeting in Orlando. Now I can just give someone a copy of
this mini-novel or perhaps the newspaper story for a brief version. And, in talking with Thomas, he said
that he had also told it many times. He
just could not wait for me to become "real" to his friends.
I hope you made it to the
end and weren't too bored. This
started out as a short "Another Voice" editorial for the local paper
concerning just the rail travel portion of this.
But the editor said he wanted a "Lifestyles" feature, so this
is what I may give him to work with along with several pictures to accent the story. We will just have to wait and see what
he comes up with. I'm sure it will
be much shorter.