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From our hotel room.

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The service started out like most church services – boring. Usually the Christmas services are slightly better than the rest of the year because there is a decent collection of Christmas carols. Unfortunately this church decided to choose a collection of the slowest carols for their service.

I probably would have dozed off if it wasn’t for two unique performances in the service. The first was two young girls (5th grade, maybe?) playing an oboe duet. Now, for those of you who don’t know, the oboe is one of the hardest instruments to play. Well … it’s one of the hardest instruments to play in tune. 5th graders can barely play a piano in tune, much less an oboe. As soon as I saw those reeds come out I knew my ears were in for a special treat. I was not disappointed.

The next unique performance was the children’s play that was performed. Children’s plays are money! The cast was made up of three sheep, two Burger Kings, three angels and a couple of unidentifiable characters. I’m not sure exactly what the play was about because multiple sections were acted by the director trying to whisper lines to the forgetful kids.

At several points during the play the cast would all come together to “sing” Christmas carols. One of the sheep used this time to show the audience his stomach. In the angel group – two of them would sing and third would just stare at the other two. I’m pretty sure several were just lip syncing.

All-in-all a blogworthy service.

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So, I walk down the stairs into the station with my smallest bill being $10. No problem – the guy behind the window can make change. Uh oh – there is no guy – only machines. Ok, the machines take bills – no problem. Well, there was a problem – the machines don’t make change for bills. I had to buy a ticket with $10 of money on it. I only wanted a $1.25 one-trip ticket! But wait – the machine takes credit cards! Yes! I inserted my credit card and charged my one-way T ticket for $1.25.

It is very surreal going from Bulgaria where no one takes credit cards to Boston where you can’t even buy a $1.25 ticket without a credit card!

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The story starts with my parent’s laptop. It basically died about the same time I got back from Bulgaria. For the last two weeks I have been listening to both of them complain about it several times per day. Obviously they have learned from my younger sister that if you complain about something long enough you will finally get your way. My sister, her fiancé and I decided to end the complaining and all chip in $200 and buy my parents a new $600 laptop.

About the time we decided to buy the laptop I noticed a newspaper insert from Best Buy. For the first 7 hours of Black Friday they were offering some amazing discounts on laptops. $600 laptops were selling for below $300 in some cases. The catch was that each store only had a limited number of the specially priced laptops. The other catch was that Best Buy opened at 5am, so if you were going to get something you needed to be there early. In an effort to save hundreds of dollars I decided to shop on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

When it comes to sales, people are crazy. I know this – therefore I decided to set my alarm clock for 1:45am to make sure I got to Best Buy by 2am. At 4am they were going to start handing out tickets for the discounted items and I wanted to make sure I was there early. I dragged myself out of bed and headed out to Best Buy – luckily it’s only a few minutes away from my parents house. The temperature was in the low 40’s and it was still raining lightly from the previous day’s downpour. I knew there were already going to be people in line when I got there, the only question was how many.

When I got there I learned the answer to the ‘how many’ question – and the answer was ‘a lot’. Already waiting in line were about 150 people with their tents, chairs, rain covers, etc. Damn. Still, I decided to take a place in line and hope for the best. There were 3 laptops they had discounted and I was hoping some of those in front of me would be going for new TV’s, cameras, or the like. My place in line put me about a quarter of the way around the store. Luckily after about 20 minutes of my arrival the rain stopped for good. For the next several hours people were arriving and adding to the line – each with a “I can’t believe how many losers got up so early to wait in line” look in theur eyes. They guy standing behind me actually tried to go to the Worcester Best Buy first but the line was too long so he drove out to this “short line” instead. Note that there were no PS3’s being offered this morning so everyone was waiting for the other stuff.

Now I waited … and waited … talked a bit with those around me and then waited some more. Finally 4am the staff started coming around handing out tickets for the deeply discounted items. The first people in line got first crack at the tickets. The good thing was that the rules were only 1 ticket per person so no one could buy more than one special item. The bad thing was everyone in front of me wanted laptops. The laptop tickets didn’t even get close to me. Still, it was now 4:30am so I figured I’d wait another half hour to see what I could find inside amongst the non-special items. I had my eye on a projector that was almost 50% off, yet for some reason didn’t make the ticket list meaning it was first-come first serve. I hoped no one in front of me was also looking for a projector.

At 5am the line was now around the entire building. They started letting in people 30 at a time so as to prevent serious trampling. I rushed inside to the TV section to look for projectors. There were some there, but not the one I was looking for. A Best Buy employee punched it on the computer and saw they did have 5 in stock. He looked around but didn’t see any. He suggested I go to the computer section. The computer section was now about as organized as the LA riots. People were swarming everywhere. I looked around but didn’t see any projectors. Now I was getting worried. I was wasting valuable time and people were still streaming in the front doors. I went through a couple more clueless Best Buy employees before I finally found one who located the projectors. The problem was they were high up on a shelf and he needed to get a ladder. Standing below the shelf was a woman who was also looking to buy the projector. Soon after, two guys show up wanting to buy it – finally spotting where the projector lay hidden. I made sure to let them know this was now the line, there were 5 projectors available and they were #3 and #4. The Best Buy employee comes back with a step ladder. The four of us stuck on him like fly on poop to ensure no other customers encroach on our claim to a projector.

He sets up the ladder and climbs up to the top of the shelf and starts handing down projectors – first the lady, then me, then the two guys. Whew – at least the trip wasn’t a total loss. As the kid was handing down the projectors, groups of customers caught wind of what was going on. I don’t think they were looking for anything in particular – they just wanted a deal and could smell something good. As I was walking away I saw the kid at the top of the ladder holding the last projector. Below him were about 30 people all desperately trying to reach for that last projector. Good luck everyone.

I made my way to the cash register (where I had to wait in line for about 30 minutes) and headed home for a couple more hours of sleep before driving up to my Aunt and Uncle’s house in Vermont.

Although I didn’t get one of the super discounted laptops, I stopped by Best Buy again on my way back from Vermont (it was much calmer this time) and found a decent laptop for just under $600. Not as inexpensive as the other ones, but still ok. I picked it up and hope I am finished with Best Buy for the rest of the season.

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I had about a 2 hour layover in Heathrow’s Terminal 3. I don’t recall what the other terminals are like, but terminal 3 is essentially a high end shopping mall. It is also the only airport I’ve been to where people are actually shopping at these overpriced airport stores.

When I arrived at the terminal I checked the board and saw that my flight to Boston hadn’t been assigned a gate yet so I bought a bagel and sat down to play my Nintendo DS. I got up every ten minutes or so to check the board and each time the plane hadn’t been assigned a gate yet. After about 40 minutes I see a stream of people running down the hallway to the gates. That’s weird. I went back to my Nintendo, but those people made me nervous so I checked the board again. My flight was now labeled as “last call”. What the heck – just 15 minutes ago it didn’t even have a gate and now it’s last call!? I guess I won’t be taking a bathroom break after all. I ran down to the gate where they check your boarding pass and herd you into a small waiting room where everyone sat for about 30 minutes before boarding the plane. Last call my arse.

The plane was a 777. It wasn’t full so I didn’t have anyone sitting next to me – a rarity for my travels during the last year. I was happy to see TV’s on the back of each seat. Unfortunately they didn’t have on-demand programming. You had to watch whatever was playing on the 10 channels without the ability to stop the movie or start another one. Interestingly, I was on a USAir flight from Rome to Philadelphia 7 years ago that had this capability, yet I have not seen it since. What’s up with that? I thought technology was supposed to get more advanced as time went on.

I settled into my seat and watched The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and Talladega Nights – both of which I had already seen in Sofia, the latter only 2 days previous. It was still funny.

We got into Logan about 20 minutes early so I was feeling pretty good about the flight experience. That all changed when I was the only one at the baggage carrousel still waiting for my luggage. Yes, American had managed to lose my luggage. I filled out the lost luggage report and walked outside where my sister picked me up. I will say it was a lot easier not having to carry those two huge duffel bags.

About 2 minutes after we left the airport it started to rain and didn’t stop for about 36 hours. Super.

We stopped by my sister’s house to meet her new dog Budda. Budda was afraid of me, but I still tried to smother him with my love.

I was still on Sofia time so I woke up about 4:30am unable to sleep and started organizing a bunch of crap in my old room. It’s amazing how much you can get done in a day when you start at 4:30am. Wednesday morning I went out and got my Mustang GT re-registered. Oh, it was nice to be able to drive it again. Too bad I actually have to follow traffic laws in America.

The next step was to get a mobile phone set up. I already had the phone – a Blackberry I used with T-Mobile before going to Bulgaria – so I just needed to get a new T-Mobile SIM card to be up and running again. T-Mobile has some deal where if you sign up you get a free phone so now I have a crappy Nokia as a backup to my Blackberry.

Wednesday afternoon I got a call from the airport saying my bags were located and would be leaving Logan at 4pm. I could expect them in 4-6 hours. That’s either a really slow truck or it was going to be making many stops before mine. Well, at least they found my luggage.

The day ended with a big dinner of Mexican food and watching the Daily Show and Colbert report.

I wake up this morning (Thursday) and still no luggage. Very nice. 4-6 hours was now running just over 14 hours. I called American and they said the baggage was on the truck and would be delivered around 9:30am. Great. It was now 8am so I hop in the shower. As soon as I put shampoo in my hair the doorbell rings. My bags had arrived. I answered the door in a towel, still soaking wet and covered in soap and shampoo. Thank you very much. Well, at least now I wouldn’t have to wear the same underwear for a third day.

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I managed to have a few minor scared during the week in the US. One night I stayed with my sister and nearly locked myself out of her house. She and her fiancé had already left for work and I was moping around getting ready to leave. She lives in the second floor of a two story house with the landlord living on the first floor. While getting ready I head a loud meowing coming from behind one of the doors in my sisters house. Curious I opened the door where there was a shared stairway. Immediately the cat bounced up the stairs towards me. It was cute so I stopped down to pet it. It was obvious the cat was more interested in my sisters apartment than me and he/she (didn’t look at it that close) tried to get past me into the apartment. Oh, no you don’t little cat. I closed the door to stop it from going in. As soon as I closed it I realized I probably just locked myself out. Sure enough I did. Immediately I had visions of walking to my sisters office in my T-shirt, boxer shirts and socks to get her key. Luckily, the front door was left unlocked so I was able to get back in. Whew, almost a close one.

The second close call involved my sister’s car which I borrowed all week. On Sunday night I got together with a couple friends and was drinking with them when my sister called. She wanted to tell me that she passed a car with the lights on in the parking lot which looked a lot like hers. She got close to it and found out it was hers! I had left the light on. Luckily I had also forgotten to lock the passenger door so she was able to get into the car to turn off the lights.

The third involved my mother’s treadmill. I stayed with my parents a couple days and meandered into the basement where my mother had a new treadmill I hadn’t seen yet. Most treadmills I’ve been on have a button you press repeatedly to increase speed. This treadmill had a dial – heretofore known as “the most sensitive dial known to man”. I turn the dial a fraction of an inch and all of a sudden the treadmill is moving … well, let’s just say way faster than I thought it would be. I nearly slammed my head on the controls and launched myself off the back. Luckily my lightning fast reflexes were able to recover. My father (who saw it all) had a good laugh out of it though.

Because I used frequent flier miles (and I live in a backwards Eastern European capital that no one travels to) I had two changeovers on my flight. The most interesting was arriving into Newark. About 30 minutes before landing the announcement comes over the loudspeaker asking anyone with medical knowledge to press their service light. Now that is not something you want to hear on a plane – unless you immediately think of the movie “Airplane” and start laughing out loud while people look at you like you are a psychopath. Of course then you try to think if you had the chicken or the fish and the laughing stops. So anyway, the “incident” was only 5 or 6 rows in front of me so I was sort of able to see what was going on. They had her on oxygen through to the landing but I was never able to figure out what exactly the problem was. If you ask me it was the 35 MPH cross winds the plane was flying through on its approach. I almost needed oxygen too. So we get to the gate and the flight attendant tells everyone to stay in their seats so the EMTs waiting at the airport can get to the patient. After a 9 hour flight no one is super happy about this, but we all understand the reasons. So we dock and wait. Then we wait some more. Yea, now there is a crack EMT squad at Newark. They were probably late because they had to take that annoying little train from another terminal and wait in a 4 mile security line. After about 5 minutes a Port Authority police officer comes on board. He’s not sure what to do so he calls for EMTs. Weren’t they already supposed to be there? Didn’t someone call ahead? What, was the basketball game not over yet? Anyway, there is only so long you can get passengers to sit on a docked plane after a 9 hour flight so eventually we all piled into the aisles scrambled off the plane despite flight attendants urging us to stay seated. Well, it’s 175 passengers vs. 5 flight attendants so we won. I never did see an EMT. The moral of the story – don’t get sick on an airplane landing at Newark.

Rant: Newark is the only airport I’ve been to where, when you connect flights ON THE SAME AIRLINE, you have to go through the whole security process again. Thus on one trip from the US to Bulgaria I had to go through three full security checks (and associated lines). The one in Newark is a pain because first you go through a bomb detection scanner (or I assume that’s what it was) that blows air on you, then you have to go through a metal detector. The interesting thing is that all three security checks found different reasons to halt me. The first is was my belt. On the second, my belt was ok, but the pack of gum (with metallic wrapper) set off the alarm. On the third one nothing set off the alarm. I love the consistency.

Well, I finally made it back to BG. I was thinking in my 6 hour layover in Milan that there should be rooms with cots that you can rent by the hour. The cots can be divided by cubicle walls. There is a special room for snorers. There aren’t any alarms to disturb sleepers – either an attendant can wake you up or install a special alarm that vibrates the bed. I would have gladly paid 20 euro for a few hours of comfortable sleep. Those airport chairs just don’t cut it.

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