6/5/14 - "Flying to Poland"
Blogger's Note: I had some trouble getting set up. Before arriving, I had this idea that I would set up shop on Joanna's parents' patio. It's a scenic setting with an overhang, colorful flowers, picturesque European decorum, and vines that creep through rafters. Unfortunately, that wasn't possible. The WIFI signal couldn't reach that far. Why do I need a WIFI signal just to write? Well, I like being "connected" while I'm writing...
Pandora radio plays some independent folk music, pictures are easily uploaded, social media is just a click away, and on and on...
So I was relegated to the balcony where the signal was reachable. Isn't that just horrible? I must write from atop a perch where I am looking at the mountains being kissed by mist, villages roosting on hillsides, and steep rooftops are shingled with charming slates. I am alone and surrounded at the same time; I could not be happier. Pandora radio is apparently not available in Poland, but I discovered something called Grooveshark. It's fairly similar, and I think I prefer Pandora. But it's not bad, and I'm hearing songs in the folk genre that I've never heard before. That's a good thing.
We are in Poland for our fifth time. Amelia's first visit; Roman's second. I thought I'd describe the trek if only because I have a strong desire to write, and I've been missing my passion for writing lately. A 26 hour journey is as good a reason to post something as anything...
Listening to: Billie Holiday "I'll Be Seeing You"
We left Kentucky in our minivan at about 6 am. Although our flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 5:30pm and the drive to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago is only about six hours, we knew that the potential for delays caused by Roman's or Amelia's tantrums could be time-constraining. Fortunately, the drive went without incident. We stopped just north of Effingham, IL at a rest area that had a playground and let them run around for about twenty minutes. Amelia slept much of the way, and I took advantage of every second that she was asleep to gain some distance on Chicago.
I've always felt that the trip to Chicago is broken down into quarters. The first segment being Mt. Vernon, the middle is Effingham, and the third quarter is Champagne. I'm just writing that because I wonder if anyone else sees it that way...
We arrived in Chicago around 1:30pm, which was earlier than we expected so we had some time to kill. We decided to eat at Giordano's (our favorite pizza place in the Chicago area). There's a chain of them in that area, and they're not too hard to find. They have this Chicago-style, stuffed pizza that takes a little while to cook but it's well worth the wait. We highly recommend it if you haven't tried it.
We ate on the nice, outdoor patio, and I ordered a beer. Even though we weren't in Poland yet, I felt like my vacation had already started. We relaxed and let the kids play in a little corner where no one else was being disturbed.
Finally, we left and headed to the Marriott nearby. Why there? Well, that's normally where we park our car. The fee was about $225 for the month, and they shuttle you to and from the airport. The price seems to go up about $20 every two years, but it's still cheaper to drive and park than to fly out of Paducah for the added price of 3 tickets (a child under 2 is free, so Amelia doesn't cost anything).
We transported 4 giant, luggage pieces, a stroller carrying young Amelia, a laptop case, a diaper bag, a giant Joanna purse, and a backpack-toting four year-old to and through O'Hare's International Airport. As soon as we walked in, chaos ensued.
Lufthansa apparently had 4 flights booked to leave within an hour of one another. A line that ran for miles greeted us. An older lady wearing a Lufthansa uniform immediately got my blood pressure up (I later grew to like her, but let's keep this story in order, shall we?).
"Where are you going?" she yelled at me above the noise.
"Dusseldorf, Germany," I replied feeling pressured to give a response. I had almost said "Krakow, Poland", but that would be our final destination. I have flown enough to learn airline-speak.
"You're late! That flight leaves in an hour, and we have a lot of people to get through here," she lectured me.
"Ummm, we're two and a half hours early, and that's why..." I countered.
"Oh, you're on the second flight to Dusseldorf?" she yelled at me.
"Yes," I answered.
"Well, then you're early!!!!" she again lectured, appearing content that she had produced a reason to scold me.
"Yes, and this long line is the reason why. Now, which line should we get in," I addressed her with an increased heart rate and a desire to tell her, "You're fucking with a Kentucky boy, bitch! Ima find me a Pabst Blue Ribbon can o' beer to chuck at your bitch ass!" But I refrained...
When we at last got into the correct line, we noticed that it wasn't moving much at all. Apparently, the folks destined for Munich, Germany had priority; so, they let them go first. I was ok with that as long as we made it on time. The long wait manufactured a couple of restless children that had nothing to do. Roman began to swing on the line dividers, which was just not a good idea. I scolded him and tried to keep him occupied with conversation. He did pretty well considering...
"Where you from?" The lone, elderly lady in front of me spoke to Roman.
He shyly ran behind Joanna to escape dialogue. I addressed her with a smile, "we're from Kentucky, heading to see their Polish grandparents."
"Oh, wow. That's cool." She smiled.
She would turn around and face the direction the line was moving and occasionally face me with further discussion when the standing proved to be too monotonous.
"So, where you from?" I asked her.
"North of Milwaukee, in Wisconsin," she proudly replied. I've learned that a person is proud of where they're from no matter where it might be. Not that I wouldn't be proud to be from Wisconsin, but I just recently noticed that. I mean, I'm representing Kentucky: home of fried chicken to the rest of the world. And I'm rather proud of that. When someone asks me where I'm from a have this dilemma to decide how to respond. I was raised in Southern Illinois, but I was born and I've lived most of my life in Western Kentucky. If I respond Illinois, everyone immediately thinks Chicago. And I've always been of a mind that Southern Illinois doesn't really belong to the rest of Illinois and Western Kentucky doesn't really belong to the rest of Kentucky. They should be combined and perhaps called Illinucky. Perhaps I'll respond with Illinucky one day and when they say, "where's that?" I'll just roll my eyes and ignore them as if that was the dumbest question that I had ever heard.
"Where you headed?" I asked her.
"Germany. My father is receiving alternative medicine for cancer there," she told me, smiling.
"Oh, I'm sorry..." I sympathized.
"Oh, it's ok. It's working. He's responded very well. They're just doing a couple of final treatments to get the last of it."
"Oh, wow. Cool. I've always thought that alternative medicine is probably the way to go. Not enough money to be made for the health industry though..." I speculated, more to fill the silence than because I had any strong convictions or superlative knowledge on the subject.
"Well, it's not cheap," she explained with a friendly correction. "Just this treatment was $23,000 dollars."
"Wow, well, I'm very glad it's working," I said. The revelation sparked a lot of thought in my head. I mean, $23,000 dollars is a lot of money, but the health of a loved one is rather priceless, isn't it? I really liked this lady.
"Do they get along well?" she asked me, talking about Roman and Amelia.
"It's ok, but they constantly vie for attention. I think they're a little jealous of one another," I confessed.
"How far apart are they?" she asked.
"Three years, just like my brother and I were."
"Yeah, three years does that. If they're close together, they're more like teammates. If they're far apart, then they don't really contend with one another. I was the eldest of nine children. I had to babysit all of them at twelve-years-old while my parents worked, and this was before cell phones. If I had a problem, I had to improvise..."
I marveled at the idea and found that I really liked this lady. She was easy to talk to, and she knew things. We passed the time by in such a fashion.
"Where do you think you're going?" the mean, Lufthansa lady was yelling at some man.
"I going to Dusseldorf. We wait too long. We go to front of line," a large, German individual told the lady.
"Oh, no you don't. Get to the back of the line, buddy. Everyone else is doing the same thing. We have four flights going out about the same time. Sorry about your luck..." I began to think that a lady with such a strong personality should have a signature maneuver. Perhaps she could jump off the counter and perform a "Lufthansa Lady Lariat" on her opponent.
The man flexed his muscles... and then proceeded to the back of the line. I began to pay attention to her interactions with customers.
"You.. get in that line! Sir... the baggage doesn't belong there. Pick it up and get it out of the way! Ma'am.. cover your mouth when you sneeze, there's children here!" And on and on she went...
"Oh my. If I were to do that at my job, I'd be flogged," I confessed to Mrs. Wisconsin. "I work at a riverboat casino, and they are very serious about customer service."
"Oh, yeah. For a casino, I can see the need for good customer service. But here? I couldn't imagine how chaotic it would be if she wasn't here..."
So, I began to watch Lufthansa Lady in a new light. And I began to see how awesome she was. "Sir, get your finger out of your nose, you can pick it later. Buddy, that luggage is too big for carry-on. This flight's full. Figure something else out. Lady, next time you fly Lufthansa, take a bath, would ya?"
She again noticed us. "You've got two kids and you've been standing in that line for an hour! What's wrong with you! Come over here! You can go next..."
I felt a little uncomfortable getting to cut in line. The people in front of me were looking at me. "Just go," Mrs. Wisconsin encouraged as she noticed my hesitation. "If they had to wrestle with two kids, they would understand."
When at last we got our boarding passes, we were told that the luggage system was down. I knew then that losing our luggage would be a potential problem. We made our way to the security checkpoint.
They had a new system where one-by-one people stood in this booth with their arms raised and getting scanned. I felt a pang of anger at the suppression of freedom being displayed. A TSA agent waved us over to the metal detector. Since we had two children, they let us go the easy way through.
We examined our tickets to discover that we were all separated on every flight. Joanna would have Amelia; Roman and I would sit beside one another.
We made our way to the gate that our longest leg of the journey would be departing from. We didn't wait long though.
Once everyone had found their seats, the pilot addressed us on the intercom. "Ladies and gentlemen, the conveyor system for the luggage isn't working right now. Our sister flight to Dusseldorf leaves one hour behind us; they will bring the luggage that didn't make it."
Fuck. I just knew that our luggage wasn't going to make it. Especially since our flight from Dusseldorf to Frankfurt left just one hour after we arrived.
The nine-hour flight from Chicago to Dusseldorf went unusually well. Roman was absolutely terrific. He watched, ironically enough, Pixar's Planes while I watched Her (which, by the way, was a great movie that I really enjoyed). People around us and the stewardesses constantly marveled over my son. I proudly kept my arm around him and entertained him by coloring and giving him cookies (we don't normally let him have junk food, but on a trip around the world, we make exceptions). For the remainder of the flight, he would sometimes shrug and say, "ok, let's go home now" as if turning around and going home was just a matter of opening the door. Joanna and I would respond with "don't you want to go see Ba Ba and Dza Dza?" to which I could physically see his resolve. He would steel himself, and the action warmed my heart to the point that I thought I might be the weirdo crying on the plane. He actually gave me determination to keep going. I can't print how proud I was of him. He spoke with his Polish grandparents everyday on Skype, and he was anxious to see them, to touch them.
Joanna sat on the front row of the Economy class where she got a bassinet for Amelia. Fortunately, our daughter slept most of the way. I must pause here to praise Lufthansa. If you ever find yourself traveling with children, I can assure you there is only one way to go. No other airline comes even close to their standards for the comfort of your children. I dread the flight home with United Airlines which is just notoriously the opposite.
In Dusseldorf, we got off the plane in a hurry to catch the next flight. Such a hurry, in fact that I quickly realized that I had forgotten Roman's favorite cap (his Go! Cardinals! hat as he calls it -- and no, I didn't tell him to call it that...) We had to wait for everyone to exit, so I could go back on and retrieve it. After I had it in hand, we made it to a long line at customs. Another American couple waited just behind us. Anxious, as we were to catch the next flight, we shared our angst through conversation. It turned out that he, too, was from Wisconsin and he was headed to New Delhi, India to visit his son. I found that I very much liked learning about the traveling reasons from my fellow Americans. He was a Brewers fan, so we talked about baseball and forgot that we were in line.
"Next," the German customs officer scolded me when I had forgotten I was next.
We made it on our flight from Dusseldorf to Frankfurt partially because there had been a thirty minute delay. Again, we had to situate our seats because we had all been separated. Fortunately we found some people that would swap with us. Roman and I sat together. Joanna held Amelia.
On this leg of the journey, Roman had a window seat (during the first leg, we sat in the middle aisle). Roman absolutely loved watching the world from his window. The clouds, the outlined fields, and the toy-like towns traveled underneath us for his viewing pleasure.
In Frankfurt, we had grown very travel weary. We were nodding off as we boarded the plane. We found our places. This time, Roman, Joanna, and Amelia all sat together; and, I had a window seat in the middle of the aircraft. Not long after sitting down, I rested my head against the window and fell asleep.
"Excuse me, sir. Excuse me." I woke up. Some girl using broken English was trying to get my attention. "Would you like to sit with your family?"
Still sleep-delirious, I was trying to get a fix on what was going on. "Sir, would you like to sit with your family. I can swap with you."
"Whatever is most convenient," I replied. Actually, I was more eager to get back to sleep, but I didn't say as much.
"I swap with you," the girl told me more than offered. The other passengers got up, so that I could get out. I made my way back to where the rest of my family was sitting in the very last row. "What happened?" I asked my wife. "Did you ask her to swap with me?"
"No," Joanna clarified. "She sat down beside us, saw me with two children, and started begging people to swap with her. I finally told her to swap with you and that you were sitting in 15F."
I tried to go back asleep, but I couldn't.
We sat there waiting for the plane to take off. We waited and waited and..
"May I have your attention please," the pilot spoke over the intercom. "We are having a technical difficulty. We are sorry, but we will need to relocate to another plane."
We sighed. At last, they had us file off the plane, onto a bus, and to a different plane. We boarded and waited some more. When we at last took off, two hours had passed since we had boarded.
Finally, the last leg of our journey began. Roman fell asleep; Joanna and I did our best to stay awake for this last leg. Amelia was cranky.
One hour later we arrived at our final destination: Krakow, Poland.
We always laugh when we exit the plane in Krakow. The airport there is medium-sized, certainly not large. When we step off the plane, the airport is just 50 yards away, easily in walking distance. But, we have to board a bus that takes us that last 50 yards. I suppose there's laws about pedestrians on the tarmac, but it's still funny.
When, at last, we stepped off the short ride, we waited inside at the conveyor system for our luggage to arrive. Not long after the luggage began to appear, a Polish announcement came across the P.A. The only thing I could discern was "Edwards". Joanna grimaced. "Watch Roman and Amelia," she said as she walked to the office door that read "Lost Luggage".
We were the last people standing when Joanna finally returned. "You know how the conveyor system was down in Chicago? Well, our luggage was lost. They found it in Germany. It will arrive tonight, and they will deliver it to my parents' house tomorrow."
I began to mentally inventory everything of value that was in my luggage: my wedding tux, my music, all my good clothes, my underwear, my old-boy-plays-a harmonica, my medicine. I began feeling some anxiety.
"Don't worry," Joanna assured me. "It happens all the time.".
At last, we stepped out the door. Joanna's parents, Roman and Krystyna, greeted us with hugs and gifts. Roman hid behind my leg for a moment. "Roman, who is that?" I asked him. He paused. He peeked out. "Ba Ba and Dza Dza," he answered.
He, in an act that I never would have thought possible for such a shy boy, walked to them and hugged them. I had to laugh lest I cry.
Joanna, Roman, and Amelia rode to Kalwaria with the grandparents. I climbed in the car with Joanna's brother Arek. We talked about Star Wars, bike riding, traveling, weddings, and vodka on the thirty minute drive.
At the Madej villa, roladki wolowe, ogorki kiszone domowej roboty, cwikla, and kluski slaskie was served. Basically, a nice sausage held together by a toothpick with shredded potatoes, carrots, and onions
in the center was served with potato dumplings, homemade pickles, and a delicious gravy. At 6pm local time, I had finished eating. I had been hungry (I can't stand airplane food, and we didn't have any Euro's for some German snacks), and the food was just amazing so I had stuffed myself to the brim.
My eyes grew heavy, and I knew that fighting sleep was no longer possible. I had wanted to stay awake to around 9pm so that I could get my sleep on the new cycle right off the bat, but that wasn't possible. I lay down in our usual bed and fell into a Polish coma.
Our adventure would begin tomorrow...
-- Don't forget to "like" Parenting with Lightsabers here.
Blogger's Note: I had some trouble getting set up. Before arriving, I had this idea that I would set up shop on Joanna's parents' patio. It's a scenic setting with an overhang, colorful flowers, picturesque European decorum, and vines that creep through rafters. Unfortunately, that wasn't possible. The WIFI signal couldn't reach that far. Why do I need a WIFI signal just to write? Well, I like being "connected" while I'm writing...
Pandora radio plays some independent folk music, pictures are easily uploaded, social media is just a click away, and on and on...
So I was relegated to the balcony where the signal was reachable. Isn't that just horrible? I must write from atop a perch where I am looking at the mountains being kissed by mist, villages roosting on hillsides, and steep rooftops are shingled with charming slates. I am alone and surrounded at the same time; I could not be happier. Pandora radio is apparently not available in Poland, but I discovered something called Grooveshark. It's fairly similar, and I think I prefer Pandora. But it's not bad, and I'm hearing songs in the folk genre that I've never heard before. That's a good thing.
We are in Poland for our fifth time. Amelia's first visit; Roman's second. I thought I'd describe the trek if only because I have a strong desire to write, and I've been missing my passion for writing lately. A 26 hour journey is as good a reason to post something as anything...
Listening to: Billie Holiday "I'll Be Seeing You"
We left Kentucky in our minivan at about 6 am. Although our flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 5:30pm and the drive to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago is only about six hours, we knew that the potential for delays caused by Roman's or Amelia's tantrums could be time-constraining. Fortunately, the drive went without incident. We stopped just north of Effingham, IL at a rest area that had a playground and let them run around for about twenty minutes. Amelia slept much of the way, and I took advantage of every second that she was asleep to gain some distance on Chicago.
I've always felt that the trip to Chicago is broken down into quarters. The first segment being Mt. Vernon, the middle is Effingham, and the third quarter is Champagne. I'm just writing that because I wonder if anyone else sees it that way...
We arrived in Chicago around 1:30pm, which was earlier than we expected so we had some time to kill. We decided to eat at Giordano's (our favorite pizza place in the Chicago area). There's a chain of them in that area, and they're not too hard to find. They have this Chicago-style, stuffed pizza that takes a little while to cook but it's well worth the wait. We highly recommend it if you haven't tried it.
We ate on the nice, outdoor patio, and I ordered a beer. Even though we weren't in Poland yet, I felt like my vacation had already started. We relaxed and let the kids play in a little corner where no one else was being disturbed.
Finally, we left and headed to the Marriott nearby. Why there? Well, that's normally where we park our car. The fee was about $225 for the month, and they shuttle you to and from the airport. The price seems to go up about $20 every two years, but it's still cheaper to drive and park than to fly out of Paducah for the added price of 3 tickets (a child under 2 is free, so Amelia doesn't cost anything).
We transported 4 giant, luggage pieces, a stroller carrying young Amelia, a laptop case, a diaper bag, a giant Joanna purse, and a backpack-toting four year-old to and through O'Hare's International Airport. As soon as we walked in, chaos ensued.
Lufthansa apparently had 4 flights booked to leave within an hour of one another. A line that ran for miles greeted us. An older lady wearing a Lufthansa uniform immediately got my blood pressure up (I later grew to like her, but let's keep this story in order, shall we?).
"Where are you going?" she yelled at me above the noise.
"Dusseldorf, Germany," I replied feeling pressured to give a response. I had almost said "Krakow, Poland", but that would be our final destination. I have flown enough to learn airline-speak.
"You're late! That flight leaves in an hour, and we have a lot of people to get through here," she lectured me.
"Ummm, we're two and a half hours early, and that's why..." I countered.
"Oh, you're on the second flight to Dusseldorf?" she yelled at me.
"Yes," I answered.
"Well, then you're early!!!!" she again lectured, appearing content that she had produced a reason to scold me.
"Yes, and this long line is the reason why. Now, which line should we get in," I addressed her with an increased heart rate and a desire to tell her, "You're fucking with a Kentucky boy, bitch! Ima find me a Pabst Blue Ribbon can o' beer to chuck at your bitch ass!" But I refrained...
When we at last got into the correct line, we noticed that it wasn't moving much at all. Apparently, the folks destined for Munich, Germany had priority; so, they let them go first. I was ok with that as long as we made it on time. The long wait manufactured a couple of restless children that had nothing to do. Roman began to swing on the line dividers, which was just not a good idea. I scolded him and tried to keep him occupied with conversation. He did pretty well considering...
"Where you from?" The lone, elderly lady in front of me spoke to Roman.
He shyly ran behind Joanna to escape dialogue. I addressed her with a smile, "we're from Kentucky, heading to see their Polish grandparents."
"Oh, wow. That's cool." She smiled.
She would turn around and face the direction the line was moving and occasionally face me with further discussion when the standing proved to be too monotonous.
"So, where you from?" I asked her.
"North of Milwaukee, in Wisconsin," she proudly replied. I've learned that a person is proud of where they're from no matter where it might be. Not that I wouldn't be proud to be from Wisconsin, but I just recently noticed that. I mean, I'm representing Kentucky: home of fried chicken to the rest of the world. And I'm rather proud of that. When someone asks me where I'm from a have this dilemma to decide how to respond. I was raised in Southern Illinois, but I was born and I've lived most of my life in Western Kentucky. If I respond Illinois, everyone immediately thinks Chicago. And I've always been of a mind that Southern Illinois doesn't really belong to the rest of Illinois and Western Kentucky doesn't really belong to the rest of Kentucky. They should be combined and perhaps called Illinucky. Perhaps I'll respond with Illinucky one day and when they say, "where's that?" I'll just roll my eyes and ignore them as if that was the dumbest question that I had ever heard.
"Where you headed?" I asked her.
"Germany. My father is receiving alternative medicine for cancer there," she told me, smiling.
"Oh, I'm sorry..." I sympathized.
"Oh, it's ok. It's working. He's responded very well. They're just doing a couple of final treatments to get the last of it."
"Oh, wow. Cool. I've always thought that alternative medicine is probably the way to go. Not enough money to be made for the health industry though..." I speculated, more to fill the silence than because I had any strong convictions or superlative knowledge on the subject.
"Well, it's not cheap," she explained with a friendly correction. "Just this treatment was $23,000 dollars."
"Wow, well, I'm very glad it's working," I said. The revelation sparked a lot of thought in my head. I mean, $23,000 dollars is a lot of money, but the health of a loved one is rather priceless, isn't it? I really liked this lady.
"Do they get along well?" she asked me, talking about Roman and Amelia.
"It's ok, but they constantly vie for attention. I think they're a little jealous of one another," I confessed.
"How far apart are they?" she asked.
"Three years, just like my brother and I were."
"Yeah, three years does that. If they're close together, they're more like teammates. If they're far apart, then they don't really contend with one another. I was the eldest of nine children. I had to babysit all of them at twelve-years-old while my parents worked, and this was before cell phones. If I had a problem, I had to improvise..."
I marveled at the idea and found that I really liked this lady. She was easy to talk to, and she knew things. We passed the time by in such a fashion.
"Where do you think you're going?" the mean, Lufthansa lady was yelling at some man.
"I going to Dusseldorf. We wait too long. We go to front of line," a large, German individual told the lady.
"Oh, no you don't. Get to the back of the line, buddy. Everyone else is doing the same thing. We have four flights going out about the same time. Sorry about your luck..." I began to think that a lady with such a strong personality should have a signature maneuver. Perhaps she could jump off the counter and perform a "Lufthansa Lady Lariat" on her opponent.
The man flexed his muscles... and then proceeded to the back of the line. I began to pay attention to her interactions with customers.
"You.. get in that line! Sir... the baggage doesn't belong there. Pick it up and get it out of the way! Ma'am.. cover your mouth when you sneeze, there's children here!" And on and on she went...
"Oh my. If I were to do that at my job, I'd be flogged," I confessed to Mrs. Wisconsin. "I work at a riverboat casino, and they are very serious about customer service."
"Oh, yeah. For a casino, I can see the need for good customer service. But here? I couldn't imagine how chaotic it would be if she wasn't here..."
So, I began to watch Lufthansa Lady in a new light. And I began to see how awesome she was. "Sir, get your finger out of your nose, you can pick it later. Buddy, that luggage is too big for carry-on. This flight's full. Figure something else out. Lady, next time you fly Lufthansa, take a bath, would ya?"
She again noticed us. "You've got two kids and you've been standing in that line for an hour! What's wrong with you! Come over here! You can go next..."
I felt a little uncomfortable getting to cut in line. The people in front of me were looking at me. "Just go," Mrs. Wisconsin encouraged as she noticed my hesitation. "If they had to wrestle with two kids, they would understand."
When at last we got our boarding passes, we were told that the luggage system was down. I knew then that losing our luggage would be a potential problem. We made our way to the security checkpoint.
They had a new system where one-by-one people stood in this booth with their arms raised and getting scanned. I felt a pang of anger at the suppression of freedom being displayed. A TSA agent waved us over to the metal detector. Since we had two children, they let us go the easy way through.
We examined our tickets to discover that we were all separated on every flight. Joanna would have Amelia; Roman and I would sit beside one another.
We made our way to the gate that our longest leg of the journey would be departing from. We didn't wait long though.
Once everyone had found their seats, the pilot addressed us on the intercom. "Ladies and gentlemen, the conveyor system for the luggage isn't working right now. Our sister flight to Dusseldorf leaves one hour behind us; they will bring the luggage that didn't make it."
Fuck. I just knew that our luggage wasn't going to make it. Especially since our flight from Dusseldorf to Frankfurt left just one hour after we arrived.
The nine-hour flight from Chicago to Dusseldorf went unusually well. Roman was absolutely terrific. He watched, ironically enough, Pixar's Planes while I watched Her (which, by the way, was a great movie that I really enjoyed). People around us and the stewardesses constantly marveled over my son. I proudly kept my arm around him and entertained him by coloring and giving him cookies (we don't normally let him have junk food, but on a trip around the world, we make exceptions). For the remainder of the flight, he would sometimes shrug and say, "ok, let's go home now" as if turning around and going home was just a matter of opening the door. Joanna and I would respond with "don't you want to go see Ba Ba and Dza Dza?" to which I could physically see his resolve. He would steel himself, and the action warmed my heart to the point that I thought I might be the weirdo crying on the plane. He actually gave me determination to keep going. I can't print how proud I was of him. He spoke with his Polish grandparents everyday on Skype, and he was anxious to see them, to touch them.
Joanna sat on the front row of the Economy class where she got a bassinet for Amelia. Fortunately, our daughter slept most of the way. I must pause here to praise Lufthansa. If you ever find yourself traveling with children, I can assure you there is only one way to go. No other airline comes even close to their standards for the comfort of your children. I dread the flight home with United Airlines which is just notoriously the opposite.
In Dusseldorf, we got off the plane in a hurry to catch the next flight. Such a hurry, in fact that I quickly realized that I had forgotten Roman's favorite cap (his Go! Cardinals! hat as he calls it -- and no, I didn't tell him to call it that...) We had to wait for everyone to exit, so I could go back on and retrieve it. After I had it in hand, we made it to a long line at customs. Another American couple waited just behind us. Anxious, as we were to catch the next flight, we shared our angst through conversation. It turned out that he, too, was from Wisconsin and he was headed to New Delhi, India to visit his son. I found that I very much liked learning about the traveling reasons from my fellow Americans. He was a Brewers fan, so we talked about baseball and forgot that we were in line.
"Next," the German customs officer scolded me when I had forgotten I was next.
We made it on our flight from Dusseldorf to Frankfurt partially because there had been a thirty minute delay. Again, we had to situate our seats because we had all been separated. Fortunately we found some people that would swap with us. Roman and I sat together. Joanna held Amelia.On this leg of the journey, Roman had a window seat (during the first leg, we sat in the middle aisle). Roman absolutely loved watching the world from his window. The clouds, the outlined fields, and the toy-like towns traveled underneath us for his viewing pleasure.
In Frankfurt, we had grown very travel weary. We were nodding off as we boarded the plane. We found our places. This time, Roman, Joanna, and Amelia all sat together; and, I had a window seat in the middle of the aircraft. Not long after sitting down, I rested my head against the window and fell asleep.
"Excuse me, sir. Excuse me." I woke up. Some girl using broken English was trying to get my attention. "Would you like to sit with your family?"
Still sleep-delirious, I was trying to get a fix on what was going on. "Sir, would you like to sit with your family. I can swap with you."
"Whatever is most convenient," I replied. Actually, I was more eager to get back to sleep, but I didn't say as much.
"I swap with you," the girl told me more than offered. The other passengers got up, so that I could get out. I made my way back to where the rest of my family was sitting in the very last row. "What happened?" I asked my wife. "Did you ask her to swap with me?"
"No," Joanna clarified. "She sat down beside us, saw me with two children, and started begging people to swap with her. I finally told her to swap with you and that you were sitting in 15F."
I tried to go back asleep, but I couldn't.
We sat there waiting for the plane to take off. We waited and waited and..
"May I have your attention please," the pilot spoke over the intercom. "We are having a technical difficulty. We are sorry, but we will need to relocate to another plane."
We sighed. At last, they had us file off the plane, onto a bus, and to a different plane. We boarded and waited some more. When we at last took off, two hours had passed since we had boarded.
Finally, the last leg of our journey began. Roman fell asleep; Joanna and I did our best to stay awake for this last leg. Amelia was cranky.
One hour later we arrived at our final destination: Krakow, Poland.
We always laugh when we exit the plane in Krakow. The airport there is medium-sized, certainly not large. When we step off the plane, the airport is just 50 yards away, easily in walking distance. But, we have to board a bus that takes us that last 50 yards. I suppose there's laws about pedestrians on the tarmac, but it's still funny.
When, at last, we stepped off the short ride, we waited inside at the conveyor system for our luggage to arrive. Not long after the luggage began to appear, a Polish announcement came across the P.A. The only thing I could discern was "Edwards". Joanna grimaced. "Watch Roman and Amelia," she said as she walked to the office door that read "Lost Luggage".
We were the last people standing when Joanna finally returned. "You know how the conveyor system was down in Chicago? Well, our luggage was lost. They found it in Germany. It will arrive tonight, and they will deliver it to my parents' house tomorrow."
I began to mentally inventory everything of value that was in my luggage: my wedding tux, my music, all my good clothes, my underwear, my old-boy-plays-a harmonica, my medicine. I began feeling some anxiety.
"Don't worry," Joanna assured me. "It happens all the time.".
At last, we stepped out the door. Joanna's parents, Roman and Krystyna, greeted us with hugs and gifts. Roman hid behind my leg for a moment. "Roman, who is that?" I asked him. He paused. He peeked out. "Ba Ba and Dza Dza," he answered.
He, in an act that I never would have thought possible for such a shy boy, walked to them and hugged them. I had to laugh lest I cry.
Joanna, Roman, and Amelia rode to Kalwaria with the grandparents. I climbed in the car with Joanna's brother Arek. We talked about Star Wars, bike riding, traveling, weddings, and vodka on the thirty minute drive.
At the Madej villa, roladki wolowe, ogorki kiszone domowej roboty, cwikla, and kluski slaskie was served. Basically, a nice sausage held together by a toothpick with shredded potatoes, carrots, and onions
in the center was served with potato dumplings, homemade pickles, and a delicious gravy. At 6pm local time, I had finished eating. I had been hungry (I can't stand airplane food, and we didn't have any Euro's for some German snacks), and the food was just amazing so I had stuffed myself to the brim.
My eyes grew heavy, and I knew that fighting sleep was no longer possible. I had wanted to stay awake to around 9pm so that I could get my sleep on the new cycle right off the bat, but that wasn't possible. I lay down in our usual bed and fell into a Polish coma.
Our adventure would begin tomorrow...
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