East European Jaunt 2007

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Planning for this trip began more than 9 months before, at the end of February 2007. I had been dreaming for years about visiting some of the old Cold War era countries that had pretty much been off-limits for us. Back in our glory days working for the airlines, Gail and I had surreptitiously wandered close to the East-West border on many of our trips to Germany and Austria. We were always a little too leery about crossing the border, fearing some sort of mix-up which might cause one or both of us to be stuck behind the Iron Curtain forever because of our jobs involving State Department, Congressional and military accounts. Stupid really, but it was fun believing we were important enough that we might be nabbed if we strayed just a wee bit too close to the border. We used to love the intrique of simply crossing a "friendly" border such as the German-Austrian just because the guards looked so threatening in their uniforms and with guns slung over their shoulders.

Now that the Wall has been down for twenty years we felt we could finally see some of the mysteries we were afraid to visit before. This fact combined with Tyler's sincere interest in seeing some new countries caused me to start planning this trip shortly after returning from our trip to Denmark and Northern Germay just a month before. The only reason I didn't start booking hotels before late February was the fact that one can only book accomodtions 11 months in advance on most websites.

Even though I pretty well had set the entire itinerary before the end of Winter, we weren't absolutely sure we would be taking this trip until September. Tyler wasn't scheduled to start his brand new job until then so we were unsure if he would be eligible to take vacation that soon after starting. Once we knew he could go I fine-tuned, rearranged and basically screwed-up the proposed itinerary time and again.

On the day of departure I followed the now standard procedure for these trips: After getting all the suitcases arranged near the garage door, I then drove Gail and Cassie to school. Upon getting home it was now time for the most gut-wrenching phase of the trip: taking the dogs to the kennel. It's a 40 minute drive and they know by now where they are going. But even though I thought I had everything perfectly planned in advance, imagine my consternation upon pulling up at the kennels and finding no one there. No one answered my knock on the door and there were no howls from the inmates. Then I started to think that maybe I was just too early. After a 20 minute drive around the area's snow-covered roads I returned to the kennel. Fortunately someone was there. In their frenzy to get out of the car I was having great difficulty holding on to them. At one point I yanked on one of the leads and it came flying back at me. The metal clasp whacked me right below the eye. I knew right away that this would leave a mark. After getting the wackjobs inside the kennel then getting their toys and food, I was able to bid a very sad adieu to the mutts. They were not at all happy with me.

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Photos

Departure from Newark International
Thanks to my father taking us out to Newark Airport a few hours early, we hoped to get better seat assignments on our Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt. But LH in their shortsighted wisdom does not release most of their seat assignments until a few minutes before boarding. So even though we booked months ahead and requested seats together long before departure, we had to sit around at the departure gate hoping we might be lucky enough to get decent seats. We did end up sitting near each other, but we were not able to occupy the totally open row of seats with more legroom that we had been charting for weeks on Lufthansa's website,

Grandma and Gail
Gail's mother flew up from Charleston the day before. She and Gen would be joining the Lunds once again on our madcap Christmas antics in Europe.

Jeeves, the Chauffeur
Once again Mr. Smiles would be handling all the driving on this sojourn through 5 Central European countries. Our driver started working on this trip back in February and had booked, cancelled, rebooked, re-arranged and changed the itinerary with more frequency than he changed his undies. For someone that is normally rather unorganized, Jeeves had pretty well charted the course of every single minute of every single day of this upcoming jaunt. This was due in no small part to the fact that we were about to venture into totally unknown realms behind what was once known as "The Iron Curtain".
The one thing he (me) didn't factor into the equation was the fact that he would fall off the loading dock at work a week before departure. Initially fearing that I had broken my foot, I made a big production out of limping into the emergency room where X-rays revealed that the Big Baby had merely bruised his heel. After resting the offending appendage for three work days, I was cleared for departure. Throughout the course of the vacation I felt very little discomfort walking but driving more than half an hour became an agony.

The Price for Getting to the Airport Three Hours Early
Perhaps the most boring, unnerving portion of the entire trip was the long wait in Newark airport. For some reason the normally punctual Germans at Lufthansa took a long time getting us on our plane. As a result we left Newark terminal half an hour later than scheduled. Then we sat on the taxiway while twenty planes in front of us took off first.