Day One

I am currently writing this post from a sweet hotel in Brussels, Belgium. That's right, I made it! Please excuse any spelling or grammatical errors in the following post, I am quite tired.

My day on Friday started out with trying to get my bag down to the 50 lb weight limit. Thank goodness we had a scale at home! Otherwise I would have been in  a lot of trouble. My driver arrived at 11:30, and that was a pretty interesting experience... I think he may have stayed up way too late the night before because he kept leaning on the steering wheel and drinking straight from a bottle of Mio Energy. Sassy gay friend would not approve- you add a little or a lot, not just drink straight from the bottle!

What, what, what are you doing??

I got to JFK really early and was through check-in and security in all of ten minutes. So, I hung out and read since unfortunately you had to pay for Wi-Fi access. I managed to find a power station that was next to some chairs, which was surprisingly hard to do. For some reason they put the stations just far enough from the chairs that you have to stand while waiting for your phone to charge. 

It was not really fun to wait around for three hours, but luckily the time passed and soon we were boarding our flight! The flight ended up getting delayed on the runway however, and this caused me (along with customs) to miss my flight from Frankfurt to Belgium.

The highlight of my plane ride to Frankfurt by far involved both delicious food and the movie selection. I watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, The Muppets Movie, Erin Brokovitch, and an episode each of 30 Rock and Modern Family (<3). I grew up absolutely loving the Muppets thanks to my dad's influence. I wish the show would come back for real. Everything from Jack Black to Neil Patrick Harris and of course Manah Manah was just awesome.

Once I got to Frankfurt I got stuck in customs and therefore missed my first flight. I had to stop at the Lufthansa desk and luckily found that another flight was boarding in a half hour, but the lady told me not to waste any time since it takes a half hour to get to the gate! It was a very large airport. The flight was rather uneventful except for two young French guys sitting next to me that didn't realize I understood some of what they were saying. ;) For instance, they joked about how I had my eyes closed and they were never going to fall asleep, but go figure 10 minutes later I was reading and they were fast asleep for the rest of the flight! The one guy also thought he was quite the ladies man but from what I understood of what he was saying, I think that may be debatable. I headed off the plane, and while headed to pick up my bags saw a pretty car... there was a BMW M550 in the terminal!

We finally made it to Brussels airport and I met Dad at the baggage claim. We were hooked up with a diesel Citroen, and headed off to the city. Probably my favorite comment of the day was when Dad compared driving the Citroen to driving a lawn mower. :) Dad and I wandered the city for a while trying to find parking, and ended up exploring the Grand Place. We had a great lunch at a German restaurant, wandered some more, found our hotel, stopped at a brasserie, and then finally were able to get into the hotel to take a nap. Unfortunately, we napped for four hours instead of two so that may mess up our sleep systems but I'm sure we'll sync up soon.

Dad and I finished the evening off with dinner at a great restaurant called La Petite Provence. We originally ate at this restaurant with the family in our 2005 Europe trip. Just as last time, the service was absolutely amazing and so was the food. We started with mussels in a garlic and cream sauce, then had a chicken cordon bleu of sorts, and finished off with creme brulee. It was so incredibly delicious. The food here is just completely unreal.

For more pictures, check out my album Europe 2012 album on Facebook! Unfortunately the Wi-Fi here is pretty slow so I haven't been able to add lots of pictures. I promise to continue taking a bunch so hopefully a few will come out decently. :)

I can't believe I am still awake, so I think it is probably time for bed. Although it's 7:30 my normal east coast time, it's already 1:36 Belgium time, yikes! Bonne nuit mes amis!