Stranger than Fiction

Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction. It was a rather eventful trip out here to Albania. My flights all left on time and my luggage was there on the carousel when I got to Tirana, which already makes it a rather unusual journey, but it was far more strange than that.

On the longest leg from Atlanta to Milan I was seated in the back of the plane because as usual I had to buy my ticket at the last minute. There was an empty seat next to me, and a nice woman from Surrey on the other side. We chatted a bit about her passion for hunting dogs, which is what brought her to Madison, Wisconsin where she had been at a dog event. I went about my usual cross-Atlantic routine of dinner with a movie and then sleep. At some point while I was watching Georgia Rules, I glanced over at her because she seemed to be staring at me. I then thought she was staring at the TV screen in the empty middle seat, so I went back to ignoring her. I didn’t realize that anything was wrong until I noticed that she had been gone for a while and then a flight attendant came and covered her empty seat with a blanket. My curiosity was peaked, but I had no idea what was going on so I tried to sleep, but flight attendants kept coming back and waking me up as they bumped me reaching across for her blankets and pillows. Finally one of them told me that the woman had passed out, vomited, and they thought she had a seizure! At that moment there was an announcement on the PA asking whether there was a doctor on board. I guess she was really in bad shape. I felt sorry for her, but there was really nothing for me to do, so I laid down across the three seats to finally go to sleep, only to be woken up 10 minutes later to moved to Business Class so my sick fellow traveler could have the three seats to herself. Of course I didn’t complain but I am sorry that I only had 3 hours in business class before I was woken up for breakfast!

In Milan I had to run to catch my connecting flight, which was boarding by the time I got there. As I stood in my sleep deprived daze watching the people in the waiting lounge, I noticed an adorable little girl skipping towards me. Suddenly she stopped mid hop and stared mouth open looking completely amazed. A black woman had just crossed her path, and as she stared I realized that it was probably the first time the child had seen a black person. I tried to imagine how strange that would be for her and all the questions that must be running through her head.

When I finally got on the plane to Tirana I just wanted to sleep, but the boisterous conversation from the row behind me got my attention. The conversation was shifting between Albanian and English. Two men were asking the third about his experiences in prison and pushing him for details of the strangest thing he saw in his time on the inside. I thought it was a joke, but when he proceed to say that he had been beaten up twice I realized he wasn’t kidding. That story wasn’t juicy enough for his companions so they pushed him for something more interesting. He then told them about being in the shower with the only other white guy in the jail in the next shower stall. He was going about his business when he suddenly became aware that there were four legs under the shower wall next door – two white, two black. It was definitely not your average airplane eavesdropping about holidays or business trips. Ironically when I arrived to check in at the Sheraton, the men that were behind me on the plane were there checking in. They told me they were deporting an ex-con back to Albania. The guy then proceeded to ask me if I wanted to grab a drink later – ummm…I don’t think so.