The Pink Airline

Day sixteen, Bosnia. She was supposed to land in Sarajevo on Friday at 11:35 in the evening. It is now Saturday, four in the morning, and I am waking up in the car outside the airport.

A minute later the phone goes. A text from a number I don't know:

„Hey am in Sarajevo kr Hotel Konceptcafe Holst Finnish?“

So she is in Sarajevo. She has evidently borrowed a phone with somebody else's autocorrect. This is going to take a while.

At midnight the woman at the information desk had told me that the pink airline carrying Nicky would not be landing in Sarajevo at all, but in Tuzla, two and a half hours away by car. I had had a feeling about this beforehand and had ignored it, as one does.

Right then. Tuzla. Oh — there's a special bus? Fine, also good. Not much point in her waiting three hours for me.

Several texts later, sent between an airport in Sarajevo and a runway in Tuzla, it was settled that she would take the bus. The bus put its passengers out somewhere in Sarajevo shortly after four, in the spirit of mission accomplished, no complaints accepted.

Another text: „I am at konzeptcafe Hotel saplast.“ That one I can find. Half an hour later I collect Nicky outside the Saplast.

She gets in and the words come out of her all at once. I catch bus, phone dead, borrowed a phone, rain, storm, too late, nobody told us anything.

Welcome to Bosnia. This afternoon we are going to look at the pyramids.