Sammy:  4 September 2004

We stumbled off of the plane in Vienna after an 8 hour flight from Dulles and went to find our luggage.  I found mine right away though Pat Sheridan’s bag was not on the conveyor belt.  We waited awhile and talked with a few other passengers that had also lost their bags.  One fellow had the rather distinctive erudite voice of a professor.  He saw the poster tube Pat had and figured we were in Vienna for the same reason as him, to attend the transplant conference.  We told him our purpose was to attend the European Aerosol Conference in Budapest, and I asked him what aspect of transplantation he worked on, figuring it had something to do with the migration of people.  He said his interest was heart and lung transplantation.  Oh. 

Next Pat recognized a relatively young, nice looking chubby blonde female that was on the same flight, and she asked about luggage.  We told her the story and Pat said that sometimes in Vienna he finds his luggage far from where he expects it to be.  I watched our carry-on and my luggage and Pat went off to look around.  The female said she was with some SERC group, something like the security exchange of the State Department.  We made small talk.  Pat found his luggage, the transplantation guy walked by with his poster, and the girl retrieved her bag as well.  We had a few more words with the female and I imagined that she was lingering to see if anything else would develop.  Then Pat and I left and sat down for coffee.  They serve small cups of power-coffee in Europe so we added milk to our order to smooth out the effect. 

After discussing plans for upcoming measurements, Pat and I went off to look for Jeff, as his flight on Air Canada to Vienna was due within 1/2 hour.  It is not all that uncommon to have foreign flights arrive early.  The listing for the Toronto flight showed some word like AUF___ and Pat went off to find a dictionary to see what it meant.  On return, he reported that it meant “cancelled” so eventually we found the Air Canada terminal, and they confirmed our suspicion.  We headed out to the street to find our bus to the train station in Vienna.  That is when we first saw Sammy.

He was a tall, dark, handsome fellow sporting sunglasses with straight arms that gave him a Euro look.  He had on a matching tan colored outfit.  He said there was no one around to help and he was trying to get to the train station to go to Hungary to get his license because the Europeans wouldn’t accept his FAA license and to fly planes he needed a Euro license.  We told him of our plans to go to Budapest so he latched on to us.  It sounded like his city was on the way, one stop before ours.  He went on about how he had received flight training with the best at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, and how he wanted to fly.  This is one of the schools that trained the September 11th pilots enough that they could fly planes into the Twin Towers buildings in NYC. 

He sat ahead of us on the bus.  A cute girl walked by and he told her that the seat next to him was available.  She passed by.  He said he had a wife in Brussels Belgium.  We rode the bus to the train station.  On the way, he mentioned being contacted by a Pakistani while somewhere in Europe, with the plan to fly 3 passengers to London.  It was during the time of Bush’s visit to London.  The passengers were the Pakistani, a guy from Bangladesh, and a Palestinian national.  He said sure, I’ll do it for 3000 Euros per person.  He left and contacted the CIA via their website and they interviewed him.  They declined his offer to help further and the CIA eventually paid him 1500 Euros for the tip. 

Sammy’s father was the first F16 pilot in Egypt.  Sammy loves flying, and felt allegiance to the US for training him, and that’s why he contacted the CIA.  He also expressed no interest in getting stuck at Guantanamo Bay Cuba along with the other prisoners of war. 

Sammy showed the ticket salesman the brochure of the city he wanted to go to in Hungary and the man said, “you’ve got to go over there.”  We turned to talk with the salesman, then turned back to look for Sammy, but he was gone.  I didn’t get my chance to ask him if he knew any of the Sept. 11th terrorists/pilots. 

We took the 3 hour train to Budapest, sleeping a lot along the way.  The Euro’s are amazingly thin and good looking people.  On arriving in Budapest, the question becomes, “how do we go from the train station to the hotel.”  He had heard about the famous Hungarian taxi drivers so talked with the tourist info booth people about buses.  It was bus 73. Standing on a corner, we realized that we had no idea where the hotel was located, so we decided to take our chances with a taxi.  Hungarian taxi drivers can read your mind.   We discussed the rate and route with the driver until he tired of our game, and then we hopped in.  He talked out the window at another taxi driver parked ahead of use, and  mumbled something about a professor.  I said, oh, he is a professor?  The driver said no, idiot!  He is having his head examined by a professor.  As we progressed, the driver screamed out the window at a yellow car and explained that the driver was talking on the cell phone.  Then he entered the bus lane and drove twice as fast as others.

As we whizzed along, he pulled out a brochure and opened it.  It had a selection of naked women in it.  He said “ficky ficky” and made the motion of procreation.  He did this about 3 times.  I showed Pat the brochure as well.  We showed the other brochure around.  We talked about ficky ficky a lot during throughout the rest of the trip but didn’t take the driver up on his offer to deliver it to us in person.

On Wednesday 8 September 2004, we had no afternoon session at the conference in Hungary so we took a walk up the hill towards the soldier monument marking the end of WW2.  It was a marker praising the strength of the Soviet soldier in overcoming the Nazis.  After the Soviet era in Hungary fell in 1989, the plaque was changed to represent the triumph of the Hungarians over the Soviets.  We walked pass walls shot up during the last stand of the Nazis.  As we went down the hill we found a view point and an old man selling pictures.  Pat Sheridan talked with him about some paintings an the old guy had an OK command of English language.  He asked Pat, “British”?  Pat said no, USA.  The man shook is head in disgust and said, “Bush is a fool.  Not normal.  OIL.”  We all nodded our head in agreement.  It is totally inconceivable to me that any American could possibly find Bush to be a good politician.  I know why these people go for this party, but geez, can’t they do any better than Bush?