And We're Off!

Our travels to Hungary have begun.  Bonnie, Bruce, Erica, Paul, and I are currently driving to O'Hare Airport in Chicago for a 4:45pm CDT flight to Brussels, Belgium.  It's 8 hours in the air, so when we land it will feel like 2:00am to us.  Unfortunately it will be 8:00am there, and we'll have just under 2 hours before our flight to Budapest leaves.  At around noon Europe time on Tuesday we should arrive in Hungary.  We then need to pick up vehicles, take delivery of the balloon (which was shipped via air cargo on a pallet last week), and make the 2½ hour drive to Debrecen.  My guess would be that we'll arrive sometime around 7:00pm (Hungary time) on Tuesday, which would mean we've been up about 36 hours straight.  Unfortunately, even though we're driving right through downtown we probably won't have time for the best meal in the Windy City before departing, so somewhere in there we'll need to get something to eat.

You can track our Chicago-to-Brussels flight by clicking here.  It's already schedule to arrive in Belgium 18 minutes late.  And I think the Brussels-to-Budapest flight can be followed by clicking here.

Larry and Andrew will leave later this week.

We're booked on Malev Hungarian Airlines, which is 95% owned by the Hungarian government.  By booking with them through Orbitz we saved several hundred dollars over any other options.  Our flight to Brussels with be on a 767-300ER operated by American Airlines under a code-share agreement (American Airlines 88 / Malev Hungarian 4041) so it should be very much like any other international flight.  The second flight, Brussels to Budapest, is operated by Malev itself on a 737-700.  Unfortunately, the code-share arrangement means that although we're confirmed for our flights, we can't check in online and we haven't been assigned seats yet.  Can you say "middle seat in the back of the plane"?

O'Hare Airport charges for Internet access, so the only posts I'll be able to make between now and when we leave will be from my phone.  I have service through Verizon, so my cell won't work in Europe.  That means that unless we come across a free WiFi hotspot, my first post from overseas probably won't happen until sometime on Tuesday afternoon (US time).  Our hotel in Debrecen advertises free wireless, so it looks like updates will come easier than they did in Austria.

One important technical note:  The time you see at the bottom of each post is Hungary time.  So it's not really afternoon yet, but because it is in Europe, that's what shows up.