Almost Gone

Boarding begins in 10 minutes, so this will be the last post for about 24 hours.

Done Driving

We've arrived at the super-long-term lot at O'Hare with three hours until our flight leaves.

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.

Here We Go Again

Thanks for joining me for a personal account of my trip to the 2010 World Hot Air Balloon Championship in Debrecen, Hungary.

As the title of this blog suggests, this will be my own personal postings of events over the next 16 days, both balloon and non-balloon related.  Obviously I'll have updates on the event, but hopefully the official website will be on top of such things.  I'm optimistic that Internet access in Debrecen will be easier to come across than it was in Austria, allowing me to post more photos and video than I was able to in 2008.

As in 2006 and 2008, I'll be leaving my own balloon at home and helping out Paul Petrehn, one of the 6 Americans that qualified for the event.  The rest of the team consists of his girlfriend Erica Hahn (the famous balloonist, not the fake doctor), her parents Bruce and Bonnie Hahn, champion balloonist/Ford employee Larry Coan (the "Ford employee" part is important - more in a future post), and Paul's brother Andrew Petrehn. With the other five US teams and a handful of event officials there should be about 40 Americans in Hungary for the competition.

Like my 2008 blog, you can leave your own remarks by clicking on the red comments link at the bottom of any post. I've tried to make that as easy as possible, so right now you don't need to enter any passwords or decrypt any graphics to do so.  However if we get too many spam-posts I may have to change that.  Also, check out the space on the right for the option to get email updates anytime I make a new post.

For those interested in ballooning, you can get ready for the event by checking out the following sites:

• Official event website : The list of competitors and rules are posted here.  An electronic copy of the map is supposed to be there as well, but it's not yet.
• Event Director's (Mathijs de Bruijn) page of notes : This is a somewhat haphazard "dialogue" on topics related to the competition.  From a preparation standpoint, the most notable is the Austrian/German Nationals Aug 2010 link at the very bottom.  Those are the task sheets from an event run recently by this same director.  It's probably safe to assume we'll see some of those same tactics in Hungary.

For those less interested in ballooning, you can click here to check out my family's website.

And lest anyone think competitive hot air ballooning is extreme, click here to follow along with what's going on right now elsewhere in Europe.

Once again, thanks for checking in and following along.  There will be a few posts as we leave the US, with more frequent updates after we arrive in Europe on Tuesday afternoon.