In Brussels (finally)!

Yes, I made it here alive and well...but it was difficult...
I now officially hate Detroit, it's a stupid city - the crime rate is super high, the football team is the worst in history, the american car industry is tanking AND they mess up flights (just ask Lindsay). Anyways...my flight from home was supposed to leave around 5, but the plane was late from DETROIT and then there was something wrong with some valve...idk, but the flight ended up taking off an hour and a half late. So then I get to DETROIT where I'm supposed to catch my connecting flight to Amsterdam, but I was too late (and it really sucked because I could see the plane sitting outside...sigh) so then I got transfered onto a delayed flight to Paris which was pretty much leaving immediately. Bright side - I got a window seat and I wasn't going to have one on the other flight, and they fed me twice (which was good since it was about 10pmCST and I hadn't eaten since maybe noonCST) and I got my own little TV thingy in the back of the headrest in front of me, the perks of an international flight. I watched Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (ehh) and The Duchess (not a feel-good kinda movie, but still good overall). However, I couldn't sleep at all and I think the world's least happy baby was on board, which didn't help...so then I was in Paris.

I knew I had to call the ISA resident director because she was supposed to be picking me up, in Brussles, around 12:55pm(Belgium-time) and it was about 12:50pm when I arrived in Paris. I was now supposed to be in Brussels at 6:15pm, after flying from Paris to Amsterdam, then to Brussels (which, if you look at a map, is kinda ridiculous). Well, there are not a lot of payphones in that particular parisian airport (I hear there's more than one) and I walked all the way down to customs, asked where there were phones and ended up right back where I started, with a lot of carry-on stuff of course because it's me. Well, after figuring out how to make that phone call (harder than you'd think) I was feeling a little better. I'd thought about just taking the train from Paris to Brussels, but then I would have had to find the train, and I can't read French. Then I walked all the way back to that customs area and had to get a new boarding pass and go through security again, not so bad, but I was feeling frazzled. Apparently I barely made the plane because the sign said last call and they told me I was the last person to board....ooohhh well...so then I was in Amsterdam.

I was really exhausted by this point, but I knew what I had to do so it wasn't so bad. I had a long-ish waiting period before my next flight, and it involved more nudity than one would think (in the airport art...and at one point I turned around and there was a little boy with his pants down). Since it was a joke of a flight (as in really really short) we had to ride this tram out to the plane and board it charter-style, kinda cool, but I was super tired and it was cold. I slept through 90% of the flight...then I was in Brussels.

I don't think they could make the walk to baggage claim more maze-like. I went down an escalator, and up another one and went somewhere else...idk, it was a long walk. I knew that baggage claim was going to be a bust, even though all these boarding-pass-giving-customer-service people kept talking about my bags like they were going to be there. I wasn't that bummed about it, I'd known it would be the case since DETROIT, it's just annoying. Then I had to go tell another customer-service person (the non-boarding-pass-giving kinda) about my bags. Also, my flight from Amsterdam was late getting in and I had that poor ISA woman waiting for me...I felt bad. No more planes for a while, please.

So, I started at about 2:30pmCST and ended at about 1pmCST which makes a grand total of 22.5hrs in airports/planes, gross. My host family is very nice though and I have enough clothes in my carry-on to last at least a few days. I'm super tired now though, so I'm going to sleep.

Lauren :)

fun fact - blogspot's homepage is in dutch here