Journey to Belgium

We left Glasgow and made it to the airport with no problem. Once we got there, though, we found that Adam's and my flight to Belgium had been delayed, so we had to wait around for a while. When we were finally in line to board, alarms started going off. They'd been testing them earlier, so at first I thought it was just another test. But then everyone started walking away from the gate, back the way we'd come, and we ended up in a crowd of people leaving the airport. Outside, we stood around in a walled-in concrete area, no one seeming to know what was going on. We found Dan in the crowd, and then we just waited.

It wasn't terribly long before they let everyone back in; we had to go through security again, though. Adam and I said goodbye to Dan a second time, and then we boarded our plane. Because of the evacuation, though, the flight was further delayed, so we just sat onboard a while before it took off. All those delays meant we would be late to meet my aunt at the train station in Mechelen, Belgium.

An hour or so later we landed at the Charleroi airport. Because I was so hungry we ate before we got a bus to the train station, taking more time, and once at the station we had to figure out the train schedules. We tried asking a French-speaking attendent for help, but ran into what Adam called "not a language barrier, but a language wall". Looking at the schedules ourselves again, we got it figured out, but we had just missed the train to Mechelen.

There was supposed to be another train in a half hour, but it wasn't in the list of soon-to-arrive trains. The only thing to do was wait an hour for the next one after that--we were going to be so late to meet Aunt Karen! But since we couldn't do anything about it, we decided to make the most of our extra time and sat down in the train station hallway to play a game of chess on the board we'd bought in London and that Adam had carried through Ireland and Scotland.

Partway through the game, a man passing by stopped and asked, "Joue de cheque?", which means "playing chess?" in French. He knelt next to the board and watched our game for a while, occasionaly giving advice that we couldn't understand. Once or twice he moved Adam's pieces for him, and they weren't very good moves. Eventually he left, indicating that Adam's position was hopeless, and wishing me "Bon chance," good luck.

When our train finally came we made it to Mechelen fine, but we were two hours late, and we didn't see Aunt Karen anywhere. While I was getting money out of the ATM Adam asked, "What color hair does your aunt have?" He had just seen her riding away from the station on a bicycle.

Although I'd been to visit them in Belgium before, I didn't remember how to get from the train station to my aunt and uncle's house, so we decided the best thing to do was what we'd been doing all day--wait. We sat down on a bench in front of the train station, and--of course--we started a game of chess.

Before long Aunt Karen came riding up on her bike; she'd just left her post at the train station to check on her children, who were at a friend's house. It was a great relief to see her, and after stopping by to pick up the kids we went back to their house and had a delicous dinner of Belgian soup, finally at our destination.

On the plane

Note: Most of these posts will be paraphrases from my journal, like this one, written on the plane.

My journey to London has begun. The plane took off about an hour and a half ago, and here we are, flying, probably over the Atlantic now. It’s been a strange day—frantic, last-minute packing, saying goodbye to everyone, leaving in a hurry, then a sudden slow-down when the three-hour drive started. We arrived at Newark early, around 5:45. I was feeling dazed by that time, so after lugging one of my suitcases through part of the airport, I was very relieved to see the familiar faces of some of the Londoners. After check-in, I said goodbye to Mom, which was sad, and went through security. We sat around there for a few hours, talking and eating, before boarding the plane. I tried to sleep after eating and watching a movie, but it was just too uncomfortable. Finally I dropped off, only to be awoken by the announcement that the plane was beginning its descent and we would be landing in about an hour. After that I gave up.