The Trials of Travel

This blog post is going to be the summary of my travel to Brussels, as recorded in my notebook throughout my very long and tiring day. September 1^st began at 3:00 am with my last American shower, which I was told to enjoy...so I did. So, I took a nice long thirty minute shower, got ready to go, and the entire family was out the door by 4:30 am. Everything went smoothly in the Seattle airport, and I boarded the plane brimming with optimistic enthusiasm. And then, I reached my seat. Unfortunately, one of the trials of air travel is the extreme space constraints – something that is becoming an increasing issue with the growing population of obese Americans. One such lady was sitting in the aisle of my row, so as I politely asked her to let me squeeze by into the center seat, I was cringing at the uncomfortable situations that loomed ahead for the next few hours. Sure enough, I was sandwiched between this lady who could not stay in her seat and a lady who was barely restrained by the armrest in her window seat. Fortunately, United Airlines provides complimentary in-flight entertainment on flights longer than 3 hours, so I was able to spend most of my time engrossed in the film. On that note, however, I do not recommend “The Back-Up Plan” as your next movie rental – it wasn’t bad, but I think any praise I could give it is only a result of it serving as my main amusement during my previously described confinement.

On our descent into Dulles, the flight attendant cheerily got on the PA system to announce our connections. She rattled off a number of different connection gates (Brussels, C19), and then said “unfortunately, although we have all of your connection gate information, we still don’t have our arrival gate. But if you take a look at the magazine in the seat pocket in front of you, there is a map of Washington Dulles airport – at least you can figure out where you’re supposed to get to!” Not exactly helpful if you don’t know which gate to start from. We ended up landing somewhere around D28 I believe, and I started off towards the C concourse. My power walk with my duffel and backpack soon became a mere brisk pace, which eventually slowed to a leisurely ramble and bag-drag past 40-odd gates of the Dulles airport. However, along the way, I got to see the people-movers that the airport uses, and I have to say that they resemble something out of the Star Wars movies – the Death Walkers perhaps? Anyway, sitting in the Dulles airport was the first time it hit me full force that I am actually going to Belgium for a whole 4 months…and then again, before I even recovered, they called out Flight 8802 departing for Brussels, Belgium and I went crazy all over again.

I was thrilled to see that in our larger airplane I had scored an aisle seat. For me, the opportunity to stretch out more and have the freedom to get up uninhibited has always been more appealing than the view a window seat accords. With a chance to freshen up and buy a Starbucks, I had regained my optimistic enthusiasm. We smoothly got underway, and once again, I turned to the in-flight entertainment. This time I had my own personal screen and different channels to choose from – and they were playing Mary Poppins. I love Mary Poppins, and was perfectly content to sit back, relax, and enjoy Julie Andrews’ singing and Dick van Dyke dancing with penguins. Nothing beats the classics!

Everything was going swimmingly until approximately 3.5 hours into our flight (which means the plane was somewhere between Northern Canada and the United Kingdom). My practically perfect Mary Poppins had been paused so that I could listen to the captain’s announcement, which went something like this:

“Good evening everyone, this is your captain speaking. Well, I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we have an issue with our water supply….it appears we have none. We seem to have lost it somewhere over Canada. So, unfortunately, we have to turn around and divert back to Boston. We’ll keep you updated, and so sorry for any delays that this might cause.”

WHAT?! Remember how in my last post I predicted that I would freak out somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean? Well, that definitely happened. We were exactly halfway through our flight, so none of us could figure out why we would divert back to Boston rather than simply continue on to Brussels. But back to Boston we went, and after back-tracking for an hour and a half, we careened down onto the tarmac in the worst landing I have ever sat through (or tried to sit through, since I was struggling to remain in my seat). After that bone-jarring shock, we taxied up to the waiting mechanics and they got to work. Our flight attendant got on the PA system at that point, and kindly told us that since we had already cleared US customs, we had international status. Consequently, we could not leave the plane under any circumstances, and we were to “please remain in your seats until we can identify the problem with the aircraft and let you know the plan.” In other words, sit tight and don’t move.

 Fortunately, I was not on a strict schedule for my arrival in Brussels. Granted, I wanted to have nice relaxing day before heading over to my program, but it would still be manageable. The poor nice lady sitting next to me was not so lucky. She had a connection in Brussels that was supposed to take her to Madrid to attend a friend’s orchestral performance, and then she was flying out the next morning for Sweden to see her boyfriend and finish some visa paperwork (because she is moving there in 3 months). She was understandably upset by the delay. And apparently, there was a group of about twelve people behind me that were supposed to catch a flight to Kazakhstan that only leaves out of Brussels every 4 or 5 days. Oops. After just over an hour and a half of sitting on the tarmac in Boston, the captain got on the intercom to say that the water valve problem had been fixed and we would be back in the air shortly. “Shortly” ended up meaning another twenty minutes, but finally we were back on our way! We were informed that we had 6.5 hours left to our flight, and we would arrive about 4.5 hours behind schedule to Brussels. Lovely. By this time, even I was visibly upset and annoyed. Part of me felt like walking up to the cheery flight attendant and kindly telling her that no matter what language she spoke to me in (English, French, and German on this flight), I would still be annoyed with her and very grumpy. Quite frankly, the only positive thing that I can say about our Boston detour was that the view flying in was very pretty. Other than that, the experience made me want to simultaneously curl up in the fetal position and scream at someone.

The only two people on the plane that seemed completely unaffected appeared to be a couple that was sitting across the aisle from me. They wholeheartedly represented the saying “Keep Portland Weird.” They were lifelong residents of Portland, Oregon, and were representing the International Dark Sky Association. Apparently, they are traveling to Brussels to make the European Union aware of the “Belgian Window.” This window, I learned, is a gross example of human light pollution, because astronauts use Belgium as a reference point due to the huge mass of light that it produces (all those European tax dollars at work!). Obviously, they were very enthusiastic about the subject and consequently, I heard more than I ever wanted to on the subject. Listening to them affirmed my decision to avoid all classes and internships that deal with global environmental policy – it is definitely not for me.

The rest of the flight was relatively uneventful. I actually managed to get a few hours of sleep, and I didn’t feel too sick until about 5 hours in. The only downside was that I didn’t ration my food very well, so after the Boston detour, I was running dangerously low. They did serve a dinner and light breakfast, but one thing that I have learned is to never rely on the in-flight meals for anything remotely related to taste, sustenance, or happiness. I ordered the vegetarian meal, because I figured it would be less stressful to chew rubbery pasta than to play “name that mystery meat!” I’m pretty sure that it was supposed to be chicken, but you can never be quite sure.  I had brought my own zucchini bread muffins (courtesy of my wonderful sister) and cinnamon Life cereal, so I didn’t even get the breakfast. From watching the lady next to me, it consisted of a mini yogurt cup and a triangular piece of banana bread. Yeah, I’ll take my zucchini muffins any day.

FINALLY, after hours and hours and hours of being stuck in that stupid tube breathing recycled air with a couple hundred of my best friends, we landed in Brussels. I passed through customs after being questioned by a very grim-faced Belgian border patrol agent, and got some Euros and my checked luggage. The absolute worst part of the travel experience for me is always waiting at the carousel for your luggage to appear. You wait and wait, and the carousel spins around and around, and your brain automatically assumes the worst – all your luggage is gone, someone else walked off with it, etc. They were a little slow in unloading the bags on this flight, so that gave me lots of extra time to freak out. After collecting myself and my stuff, I passed through security and then tried to find my hotel shuttle. After going down two floors to the hotel shuttle lane and talking to two different drivers, I discovered that none of them have ever actually seen a shuttle from my hotel. I had no energy to try and figure out if a shuttle really existed – I just wanted to put my bags down. So I went back up a floor and hopped in a taxi. Five minutes and 13 euros later, I was outside my hotel. Naturally, I went to check-in and the lady told me that check-in wasn’t until 2:00 pm (and it had just turned 1:00 pm). Well, I must have looked pretty pathetic, because she called housekeeping and told them to do my room first so that I could drop my stuff. Twenty minutes later, I rode an elevator smaller than my closet to the second floor (where rooms 300-320 are located) and collapsed into room 306.

At present, I am sitting at the desk trying to get all of my thoughts recorded before I take a shower and freshen up. I didn’t really see anything close by on my taxi ride here, but I think that I’ll go downstairs and ask anyway. Regardless, I have to get away from this bed – I won’t be able to resist it for very long! Well, there is my travel story – I always seem to have something happen to make it interesting. I am so excited that I am finally in Belgium that I’m bursting. My very first image of Belgium was a quaint little town that we flew over on our descent in to Brussels National Airport. It had the rolling green farmlands, little houses, and a church with a steeple that towered over everything else. It made me smile. So au revoir for now, and I will update again when I have done a little bit of exploring and recovered from my travels!