Here Goes...

Hi everyone! I write guides and provide documentation for my company. Currently, we have a team of developers/technicians in Hungary who are helping us while our company goes through big changes in our software and product lines. Because the technicians in Hungary have access to customer data, we need an authorized American representative to give out their USB security keys and access tokens every morning so that they can go to work. In the future we may go through the auditing process so that they'll be able to use the keys themselves, but in the meantime they need an American human to physically hand these keys out. And that human is me.

The people who initially went to Hungary for my company all had a skill that necessitated them making the trip. They trained the Hungarian technicians and ironed out the update process that our project requires. Now that that's settled, we had to bring our initial representative, Jason, home to help customers adjust to the repercussions of a huge company project. But who could we find to replace him? With training out of the way, all we needed now was an employee with a passport, a job that didn't require him to be on the EST timezone, and someone without a family that depended upon him. And that person needed to leave next week.

It sounds like a punishment meted out by cigar chewing sergeants to rogue detectives in 70s cop dramas. "Jacob, one more screw up from you and I'll have you doing documentation in Hungary!"

I had never traveled overseas before. My only other experience with international travel was a road trip to Mexico right after college. I blogged about that too, and you can read about that in

http://ourtriptomexicocity.xanga.com/

Yeah baby, a xanga blog with no pictures! Is there no greater waste of Internet space?

But now I had the opportunity to travel internationally and meet a group of fellow employees contractually obligated to keep me alive. This seemed like an ideal way to get out and see the world. My passport had remained pristinely unstamped since an CVS employee had spit into his hand and slicked back my unruly blonde hair before snapping its picture, so if there was ever a chance to travel, this was it. I think it was like Tuesday when they asked me to leave. Monday morning I hopped a plane for Hungary.