As I stepped off of that Air France plane, I was in a daze. I felt like I wasn’t actually there- it was all a dream. A good dream.  Maybe this daze was due to the fact I hadn’t slept in at least 30 hours. Maybe it was due to that weird concoction of food that was served on the flight.  Maybe it was because I had just watched endless hours of ‘The Office’ on the direct TV during the trip. Or maybe it was because I had just landed in a country halfway around the world: Budapest, Hungary.

                I carefully stepped off the plan, and made my way through the terminal, catching glimpses of signs and snatches of foreign dialects being spoken.  The noises flooding in from everywhere: kids crying, intercom buzzing, and the click-clack of suitcases being rolled on the floor. Being a confident traveler, I barely felt any panic walking through the foreign airport looking for the customs area. My knowledge of the Romanian language wasn’t very useful in its neighboring country, causing me a bit of frustration. Soon enough, I found a sign in English pointing me downstairs to customs and baggage claim.

                Customs was a quick and easy deal due to the fact that I have an American passport, and Hungarian officials like Americans. They just go “Ah…American. Tovabb! Go!’’ and you are free to move along. If I had been Romanian or Bulgarian, I’m sure it would have taken at least three times as long, judging from the other lines.  Then began another challenge: looking for my luggage.  In America and other organized countries, there is a sign above each baggage carousel with the flight number on it. Well, in Budapest….that wasn’t the case. Your luggage was placed on whatever carousel the airport employees put felt like putting it on with no personal notification of which one it was.  Traveling with me and my personal bag was two boxes full of medical supplies and one box of soccer balls to be transported into Romania. Soon I saw my black clothes bag, followed by two large boxes labeled ‘medic’ come out of the shoot. But after everyone else’s bags came through, the soccer balls were nowhere to be found.