Owlspotting

Browsing the Web this morning I came across an intriguing little story in the Chicago Sun-Times about a Romanian man who was sent home to Romania after immigration officials found him living in the O’Hare airport.

The story is fascinating to me as a journalist and I wish it told a more complete story of this man — remember the similar premise of the Tom Hanks movie, The Terminal? I wanted to know how one lives in a terminal, why he did it, why he hasn’t contacted his family, why they were not there for him, why his marriage plan failed etc.

But that’s another story I guess. This one does end with the common misconception that Budapest is the capital of Romania. I did my civic duty of e-mailing the reporter and asking for a correction.

I said: “You write: ‘There are no direct flights from Chicago to Budapest.’ That’s all fine and dandy, but it’s irrelevant since Budapest is the capital of Hungary, which is not Romania. Bucharest (Bucuresti) is the capital of Romania and from what I now there are no direct flights to and from Chicago either.”