I'm not complaining, honest, but

I am a tad impatient and can't wait for the fun to start (seriously). However, I’m not having much fun now, this second, this very moment. Fun means working on the apartment and I need to get to the mall to do that. Oh, I can get to the mall by bus, but then getting back with tons of useless junk will be difficult.

I have friends who will drive me there if I'd just call them, but this is a personal quest which may take hours. I need to turn over every label, every price tag. I need to imagine every purchase being useful for exactly 3 years and disposable after that. So, I need a car, MY car, for the adventure. Until it arrives in 2 weeks, I can’t go to the local Home Depot variation for the million household items I could use RIGHT NOW while I’m otherwise unoccupied—waiting before I hurry up in this case. In the interim I’m watching military TV while hand-piecing a quilt I mailed to myself.

The TV programming is dreadful. Think about the intellectual accomplishments of the typical post-adolescent and you have the LCD of family entertainment: Wheel of Fortune, soaps, sports, Roseanne, Fox News, and the original Star Trek. Commercials are all military propaganda. Uplifting. Fortunately we are blessed with losing the satellite signal every 10 minutes or so. Instead I could watch local TV: American shows with Lithuanian voice over. They don’t even mute the English, just yell over it in Lithuanian or Russian (I can’t always tell the difference). One guy does all the voices. It’s priceless and explains a lot of the local alcoholism.

Today I will visit the med unit at the embassy—5 minutes’ walk from our apartment—and be told that I need a vaccination against some kind of encephalitis. They must have extra vaccine that’s about to expire since unemployed spouses are mostly expendable once the employee’s shipment arrives. Our shipment is due in about two weeks (see above) and I wouldn’t be dead before unpacking; ergo there has to be a surplus of meds. After that Mike has promised me a tour of the embassy and to introduce me to his colleagues and to the local hires he supervises. This is especially weird timing since Judith, a great friend who also happens to be the wife of Mike's DOS colleague, is having a BBQ for all of us tonight.

The embassy is the heart of the community and as such, is nearly as important to me as it is to people who work there. It’s where we go in an emergency and where we have many of our community functions. It’s important to know the Marine Guard—they are armed and they are on our side. I can’t meet the people who run these offices by sitting watching Star Trek reruns, and I can’t get into their offices the first time without an escort—there could be trouble if I make a wrong turn while wandering around on my own. So, thanks to the shelf life of surplus meds, I’ll finally meet some of the people who make the embassy work.

Then I must take a detour to the grocery store for dishwasher salt and to check out the sundries aisles for an entrance mat to trap the dirt the dogs love to drag in. The name Lithuania is derived from the local word for rain and with good reason. It’s like Oregon or Washington must be—a little rain all the time, which makes it nice and green. And muddy. I knew I was in trouble when our city tour guide explained that the pediment on the national cathedral featured Noah, et al. (see image above). After that, a nap before our dinner date. Charlotte woke us up at 4 since he walks her before bed didn't squeeze her at the right spot and she didn’t poop on command at 9:30.

Getting Here

Yup, we're in Vilnius. I read about a religious group that sends their young men away for a couple of years of sacrifice so they value their home and family all the more once they return to settle down. Maybe there is a grand plan for our being in Lithuania for our last tour and we're meant to stay put and that's why it was so painful getting here. I know I don't want to get back on a plane any time soon. Here's the saga of our trip.

We packed the car with our luggage, dogs, and dog crates, and left our lodgings in Oakwood, Falls Church at 9:30 am on Friday, July 31. We had planned to spend some time with Sheila before our check-in at Dulles and so had a wonderful early lunch before leaving for the airport at 1:30. Our SAS flight was scheduled to leave for Copenhagen at 5:15 where we were to make connections with Air Baltic after an hour and a half layover. The total time for flights and layovers was to have been about ten hours--not real comfy for the dogs sitting in their cages in the hold, but doable.

While Mike returned the rental car, I sat near the SAS counter with the dogs and luggage, chatting with Kris, a wonderful boy of 11, and his mom who, along with the dad and twin sisters waiting at the gate, were returning home to Denmark after several years of overseas life with Dad's business. They too were traveling with a dog, a Westie named Sara. They had had a longish layover and were able to claim the dog in order to walk her. But this meant they had to check in again and go through security with us.

When the check-in counter opened at 2:30, we were first in line, got our boarding passes, kissed the dogs and sent them through security, meandered across the great but very secure divide ourselves, and eventually settled in at the gate for our SAS flight to Copenhagen, boarding in about an hour and a half.

4:45pm: There is a hopeful stirring among the passengers, waiting for their boarding call.

4:50pm: The stirring becomes more pronounced but less hopeful, yet there is no boarding call.

5:00pm: Finally the nice ground crew lady at the desk issues an announcement--"There is a warning light on the plane's 'dashboard' that says there's something amiss, but the mechanics can't find the fault. We'll let you know when we have some information."

6:00pm: Even if the flight takes off now, we've missed our connecting flight to Vilnius, a concern considering Air Baltic has very limited service between Copenhagen and Vilnius and the flights are nearly always full. This I seem to recall from my days of booking travel for my bosses at Commercial Services in Stockholm. We are now in deep connection kimchi as SAS continues to search for the source of the blinking idiot light. This plane, an Airbus, has no local mechanics who can fix it and SAS is on the phone with the Airbus help desk. I am concerned since I know where all help desks in my experience have been.

7:30pm: We receive meal vouchers. My only concern is alcohol, but once I've had my meal and a beer, it's nearly 9:00 and I realize the dogs, who have been in their cages since 2:30, need to get out to potty before the plane takes off.

9:00pm: Sara's family and I beg the ground crew to take the three dogs for a walk and give one particularly competent woman the leashes. We watch as she runs, dragged by each of the dogs in turn, between the cargo door and a spot suitable for doggie relief. We, the dogs' owners, are also relieved.

9:30pm: The flight is canceled and we are told we will be given vouchers for local hotels and that seats on departing flights will be found. We are to wait in line.

10:30pm: I leave for the baggage claim to sit with the dogs.

3:30am (Saturday, August 1): Mike finally arrives at the baggage claim with our hotel voucher and information for our flight out to Frankfurt on Lufthansa at 5:30 pm Saturday.

4:00am: We collapse in our $580/night room at the Dulles Hilton. The TV has been left on fairly loud in the adjoining room; and as I stuff torn tissues into my ears, I have thoughts on why the airlines are having financial troubles.

10:00am: We take our $10 breakfast voucher to the cold buffet which costs exactly $4/person more than the voucher pays. Hot buffet (my usual breakfast of hot oatmeal) is $8/person over. I eat a tiny carton of yogurt and granola from a shop-worn individual serving box for my $14 and comment that the staff at this oh, so exclusive restaurant does not notice patrons' empty coffee cups or when the buffet line is out of food. There is no water, no fruit, none of several labeled items on the line. I hear the person at the table next to us comment that he can get grits for his $10. We return to our room to nap for another hour and a half.

11:30am: We must check out by noon, so we schlepp our three suitcases, two dogs, two crates, and our carry-ons to the lobby. The only luggage trolley available has a flat tire and can't be steered over elevator thresholds. I imagine Paris Hilton in the elevator making a blue movie on such a trolley.

12:00pm: We are told the airport shuttle is full, and furthermore it is not functioning properly and that we must wait for the next one. We are becoming the zombies we must resemble and try hard not to eat the brains of the idiots perpetrating this farce.

12:30pm: We are shuttled off to Departures only to find half of South Asia clogging the area around the Lufthansa gate, eating lunches and waiting to see some family members off. We take our belongings and our dogs and find a window ledge to sit on until the gate opens for our flight to Frankfurt. I note that as with most parties in public areas, much trash and garbage remains after the family has gone.

1:30pm: We start manoevering our cart with two dog crates and our rolling cases through the labyrinth in front of the check-in counter. Apparently it is part of democracy in action to be treated as everybody else who has only one rolling bag to steer through the crowd-control ropes. One of us is not permitted to jump the line with our luggage while the other of us waits in line for our turn. We consider eating the brains of the Lufthansa ground crew and jump the line anyway. One nice woman sees the wisdom is assisting us and gets us to the front of the line FAST...

2:00pm: where we are told that we have been put on stand-by both for this Lufthansa flight and for the Air Baltic flight (only one of two leaving there daily) we are to meet in Frankfurt. In all probability we will be stranded (with the dogs) indefinitely in Frankfurt.

2:15pm: Crew manager arrives and suggests Mike return to the SAS desk and make a few demands that will get us on our required flights.

3:00pm: Mike and Kris(!) come to rescue me and the dogs and escort us to the SAS desk. We are booked on the 5:35 flight to Copenhagen. It's the broken plane that has been repaired by an Airbus repair team flown in overnight. We are not checked through to Vilnius since we will have an eleven hour layover in Copenhagen before we can get out on Air Baltic. BUT WE ARE BOOKED! I think to myself that I am not celebrating until we land safely in Denmark.

5:40: We are in the air! Kris and family are flying business class while Mike and I, in cattle car, each have a row of four seats to ourselves. We flip up the arm rests, throw a blanket over our heads, and settle in for actual sleep.

We land in Copenhagen on Sunday at 11:30am local time, collect our luggage and the dogs, store the luggage and the cages in their Garderobe (luggage storage) and find the train to downtown Copenhagen. We find an open-bus city tour that segues into an open-boat city tour and spend the afternoon learning about Tristam IV and the stock exchange. Charlotte is so enthralled by the boat's wake that she nearly jumps into the river.

We return to the airport and check into Air Baltic where we are told we are overweight and will be put on standby until we resolve the issue. The dogs are also put on standby until they can prove they are not terrorists. We pay the overage, get the dogs through security, are given a hand-written boarding pass to get us onto the plane. Copenhagen's airport is organized to make the traveler spend money. No matter how tired you are, you may not enter the gate area until the flight is boarded. So we sat on hard chairs designed for more for torture than for rest until the flight boarded at 8:30pm.

Once on the plane, we allowed ourselves the luxury of relaxing. In one and a half hours the ordeal would be over and we'd soon be able to collapse in our new apartment. Heavy sigh.

With that in swoops the Air Baltic ticket taker. "I have to ask you both to get off the plane. We have no record that you've paid for this flight."

11:00 pm local time, Vilnius: We land. I don't know what transpired or how the aforementioned fool found out that we had indeed paid. Whatever.

12:15am, August 3: We arrive in our apartment and who is grinning up at me but my good American friend Jim Beam.