At the start of this journey in search of family roots , food, fun, and enlightenment (or at least a tan) in Eastern Europe, a very wise man reminded me to be like one of the Whos down down in Whoville and let nothing spoil the Christmas like joy this very special vacation time of life.   Great advice  and I had no idea how soon we would have an opportunity to do just that. 

Am traveling with my sister,  Rose Mary Hendrix, and four of her friends:  Brenda and Glen,  and Guy and Peggy (who speaks fluent Serbian – our family’s language of origin on my mother’s – the Oresconin side)

Rose and I left the Philadelphia airport at 6 p.m. on May 9^th.   

One of the first lessons learned was that it truly is a small world.    In our brief hello with the woman in the window seat and  where are you froms, we learned that she was from Delta, PA, a graduate of the first class of Kennard Dale High School and a cousin to just about every family in the Stewartstown area that has been there since the 1700’s.   So for two and a half hours she shared her family history and we exchanged stories about mutual friends and acquaintances!  And – being on British Airways, we enjoyed a hot dinner! After which,  the airline staff turned the lights out and we all went to sleep and woke up in time to see daylight arriving over  London (but 12:30 a.m. by our body clocks.)

Heathrow airport is beautiful…and the prices outrageous!  But food excellent….and airport personnel the most rude encountered  - EVER!!!!   Must be the London fog or rain…not sure, but except for the very senior senior passing out dark Toblerone chocolate pieces in a candy store….no  one cracked a smile or said good morning – which gave us all the more reason to smile. 

We had a 5 plus hour layover in London where there is free Public WiFi which won’t access anything on the web.   We were web free to people watch and wait for the noon flight to Athens which would give us 2.5 hours to get to Athens, go through customs, check-in, go through security and find our flight on Croatia airlines to Zagreb, Croatia.     

Seemed like a plan when the plane boarded on time.  We thought we were good to go – and then – a little old lady (stereotypical ancient Greek / Eastern Europe Baba  without babushka) had a carryon bag that did not fit in the overhead or under the seat areas and she was not certain which seat was hers. 

Before long, the airline personnel discovered that she had lost her boarding pass, didn’t have her passport, and declared that someone had taken it from her when she checked in!   She also declared she was traveling with her cousin, which she had lost on her way into the airport and could not be located on the plane.  No one was surprised when she was taken off the plane never to be seen again (at least by us.)  However, she also claimed that she had checked baggage, so we could not leave the airport until her checked bag was found!   Two hours later, we were taxiing down the runway agreeing that we would still make our plane connection.

The spookiest part of the flight took place in the bathroom area.   I went to the back of the plane, and was in line with a young woman and an older woman.  When the door opened a middle aged man came out and got back in line with us and the young woman went in.   She was in the bathroom for at least 8 minutes.  After hearing her struggle to open the door, we helped from the outside and stepped back as an ancient, bent over, white haired woman came out!   The man and I were both startled and looked at each other.  I said, I thought a young woman was in there.   He agreed, so did he!  What had happened?   Perhaps it’s true that there are shape  shifters among us and we had just seen one!   The mystery remains!!

We arrived in Athens 35 minutes before takeoff time for our plane to Zagreb.   And – there really are angels among us.  We met the first one in the form of a Border Control officer who called another one, a Swissport agent to come to where we were.  She stamped our passports;  called our airlines; discovered our seats had been sold because we were so late; managed to procure the last two seats on the plane;  sent us to the head of the next passport line;  where we made the mistake of going to the diplomatic passport area and were stamped anyway; found our way to the ticket counter she told us to go to where she was waiting with another agent;  gave us boarding passes and called the boarding area to say we were on our way!   And 35 minutes after arrival in Athens we were winging our way to Zagreb!   Thank you angels of Athens!!!