legs to step

it seems that, despite the questions raised on the topic, my packing skills have been restored to unstoppable: the box and hiking backpack, together on the scale, came to 46.0 kilos, which sounds like the precise (non to-Japan/South America) maximum to me. things could have turned out differently, perhaps, had the items been massed separately.

though scheduled for one of the earliest flights from the Sarajevo airport, mine to Vienna kept racking up three-digit delay times—along with all the others. the culprit: ubiquitous morning valley fog. that such invariably lifts (and did, but not before growing worse) was of little consolation as the time for Frankfurt- and then Philadelphia-bound flights passed. meanwhile, we sat in the little waiting room for passengers who'd eventually depart from any of the five (5) gates, windows shrouded on all sides. the special machine de-iced (or in some way prepared) the wings on three separate occasions. i left the area, and then returned, waived through security without being checked again; the apologetic employees were running around, dealing with the insanity of trying to reschedule all of the flights (because no one just leaves Sarajevo, but goes only to Vienna or elsewhere (close enough to go by other means if, in fact, it serves as a terminal destination) from which to begin the real journey)). it was imperative, however, to get out of the current airport before tomorrow morning, when the fog would again descend; everyone recognised this. we all got sandwiches and they didn't even have meat on them. we were on the aircraft, down the runway—and then back to the gate, plane disemboweled of our variously patient and super-gaijinly complaining selves.

a family who, according to the drawling father, lives in Kansas City (point to which the three of them are attempting, now to go). meanwhile, his Croatian wife clenches her jaw at these words—at any of his. it's not scorn or hatred for her husband, it seems, but for the unilateral and immutable way in which things emerge from his mouth: both she and their son navigate between English and hrvatski, when speaking to each other and, of course, to him. alliances are drawn on linguistic grounds. the one who gives orders does so, in part, because he is afraid of being, even momentarily, the excluded. instead of making the two into three (by sitting in their row, later, once we're on the plane to stay), he moves into the empty one behind it; for the duration of the flight, he cranes his [red and somewhat bulging] neck backwards to converse with the American woman (obviously a diplomat or "those" humanitarian aid worker's wife) in the row behind him (and just in front of me). i suspect that, had he not already made such a fuss about shifting once, he would have done so again—and yet, sitting beside the other American, not have, in any way, decreased the volume of his voice. he is the same one who will proclaim his love for this place (and to which does he refer? does he, in fact, know? it is not That Place, certainly—if only because, in using that designation, i do not know) because he loves history. a bromide and a slap: this most insidious, unforgivable (because none will ever be begged) combination.

later, spewed in the Vienna airport, an entire cabin of Eastern, Western, and non-Europeans attempt to negotiate with Austrian Airlines the myriad acceptable solutions to their single—but variously end-pointed—dilemma. in my case, though i find it unbelievable that no flight, through any combination of EU and East Coast US cities, would land me in Philadelphia before tomorrow afternoon. however, was not keen on taking a lesson from the two Brits being held only barely under control by the larger-than-both-combined South Asian man, dressed in the Austrian colours (as the arrogant, obtuse ones capture him on their phone-film, realising not that certain forms of nose-thumbing which tries to pass itself off as full fledged intimidation, especially ones which include ridiculously tiny (especially compared to, and in the hands of, the red-faced users) status-symbols of devices, is the surest and most spectacular (in the sense of something watched/able) road to debased loss of Cause))). thus, i accepted the terms and the new boarding passes—all of which looked an awful lot like the ones they replaced, with only a date shift. arriving in Akron on a Friday afternoon was exactly the sort of thing i had been trying so hard to avoid; perhaps i shouldn't have thought about it so much, knowing that this is another surest route—this one to Becoming Horribly True. at the end of this exchange, i had committed myself to staying overnight in Vienna and, since i had the prior encouragement of Amela to do so, i checked myself into a hotel and did not over-exert myself with the indignation that the airline was willing to contribute not a eurocent to the cost, since the probably cause of delay and flight missage was God (in the form of weather). that, now, each of the nights before Atlantic crossings that (albeit only nominally) began and will conclude this segment of my life have been spent in hotels is, perhaps, the clearest sign of some sort of unnatural aspect of the interval they (almost) contain.

it must be said: so many aspects of the scene (perhaps the entire day—and, i would go so far as to claim, the past few months) are unlike that which i would do, if left to my own devices. the resignedness, the unwilling/able-ness to press for the best solution, the general slovenliness that accompanies all of these things—and the accepting of easy solutions. even what has, over the course of this day, developed into my annoyance over these unchangeable changes to the original plan seems indicative of a malaise that i can only conclude relates primarily to the fact that, though i do so, i am not allowed to act autonomously. though i am the one either negotiating (as was the case on my flight from Philadelphia, when i managed to prevent MCC from having to buy another whole ticket to cover their own visa/stay-related knowledge deficiency) or capable of doing so—these facts are systematically obfuscated. i had to point out that i would need to fly at the latest on Thursday, so as to avoid arriving in Akron on a weekend when, presumably (although we shall see/hope), no one would be there for the requisite meetings and chastisements. etcetera, etcetera—and on down to the fact that, ultimately, i was the one doing the travel, walking through airports and answering questions about the contents of my luggages. of course, this last one is no credit-seeking degree, but only the necessity of facts—the other, impermeable one being: the constant answerability to those who are neither present nor, at times, seem to understand the situation at all. so, to truncate this before it burgeons into something really filthy: that i was faced with the exhausting duty of, somehow, informing a whole group of people (many of whom would need to be told several times, in small words, despite the fact that i could offer neither the repetition nor the bite-sizedness) of my actions, even as they changed (or were likely to do), somehow took all but the letters NE in "adventure" out of the whole Sleeping Around European Airports on an Adventurestring.

after walking around Vienna, mostly in the fog that blew up from the southwest, after schlepping too many stuffs for too long (and not long enough: i find it hard to see a city completely (enthusiastically) when i'm not carrying everything on my back), i could probably sleep well. except that the sheets here are too clean and i have a pillow.