Arrival in Brussels! Saturday, October 4, 2008

While that was an interesting flight! There really was NO leg room and at times I felt like the guy in front of me was sleeping on my lap – but I am certain the people behind me felt the same way. Oh well, we got in half an hour early!

Only problem was that we all had trouble answering the questions to be able to enter the country, sleep deprivation really is a form of torture. We all stumbled over tough questions like where did you come in from, what is your purpose for being in Brussels, what is your final destination? These were not supposed to be philosophical, thought provoking questions….or were they?

Seriously though, Gary’s passport had been misplaced by the United Agent who checked him in and took him to his seat. Thank goodness we still had Langer’s passport. I am not certain what they would do with the dog if Gary hadn’t had the paperwork verifying he had his all his necessary vaccinations. By the way, not sure if I have mentioned it before but Gary is blind and Langer is his guide dog. As a matter of fact Langer is an 8 year old golden lab from the California, though he now lives in the DC/Baltimore area. He is also the outgoing president of the Maryland ara of Guide dog Users organization.

It was not a fun experience, however we all learned a lot. We now know how to get replacement passports and that if you loose your passport – or an agent fails to give it back to you then you have the pleasure of spending countless hours in airport jail. Okay, it is just an office, but still no fun – especially after having not slept for about 24 hours. Luckily, Gary, Nneka and Rico were able to take care of everything and get to the hotel before our afternoon meetings began.

Saturday was a good day. We had a short debriefing with an overview of the next four days in Brussels, received an updated schedule and then headed out for a walking tour of the city.

It is rainy and cold here in Brussels, much colder than I had thought it would be – many of us are freezing and most of us failed to bring an umbrella.

I am terribly tired and I will try to remember to write more about it later, but I have to just say that dinner this evening was an experience! We had wondered the streets, looking in shops, a couple churches and some museums when we finally decided to grab dinner. The group picked a little Italian restaurant. The problem was that two of the meals came out still frozen and the fuse blew not once, not twice, not even three times but four separate occasions while they were trying to make our dinners. Oh well, the food was bad but most of us were having a good time and simply enjoying the fact that we were getting to know new and fascinating people in an exciting new city!