Getting There

Thursday August 30^th, 2012                                  somewhere around 8:30 AM

@ Brussels Airport – while waiting for plane to Budapest

So bizarre and wonderful to be hearing airport departure announcements in three languages! (German, French, and British-accent English) The flight here arrived 30 minutes early and the 6.5 hour trip itself was fairly painless. Granted I didn’t eat much of anything for dinner, as it was chicken and mostly-cooked pasta with watery chickpea salad; so I was glad I had bought peanut butter M&Ms for snacking purposes before the flight. But on the bright side I finally watched The Hunger Games (which was fairly disturbing and at points terrifying, but good I suppose) and attempted a Bollywood movie (it became too much of a Spanish soap opera for me after about 20 minutes). I did try to sleep but it never worked out, probably due to a combination of nerves, discomfort, bouts of turbulence, and lingering fright from the movie.  Once I decided that sleep was not going to happen, I went back to movie watching, rapidly going through Juno, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Hangover before landing in Brussels.

As we were coming in for a landing, I thought we were about to fly right into a cornfield! Definitely a marked difference between arrival and departure views. I wish my camera had been more readily available – I had some fantastic views of NYC from my window seat! So instead of pulling out my camera I just glued myself to the window to make sure I could see every last inch of the city and wave goodbye. Also add into this mix the fact that the flight crew had decided to play a particularly corny cover of the Circle of Life from The Lion King (think synthesizer elevator music blended with rock ballad beats, which is then folded into the tempo of a slow waltz and you will sort of understand where I’m coming from) and that I was tearing up after my hurried goodbyes with my family, plus quietly cursing the fact that my camera was in the overhead compartment. I felt sorry for my seat buddy who must have thought I was a bit coo-coo. He was awfully nice though, even if he may have lingering questions about my sanity. He was a kindly middle-aged Indian man who later told me that he was on his way to visit his mother in Mumbai. Nothing else of note on the plane besides the plethora of Indian and Orthodox Jewish families on board. 

It always frustrates me how slow the decent of a plane is – it makes going down a whole lot more excruciating than it needs to be. My ears are still in the midst of popping – my right one keeps going in and out of being plugged. Although it probably doesn’t help that I have a cold and thus am already completely stuffed and plugged. Customs went smoothly enough and I met two American students on their way to Denmark for the semester.  The Brussels airport itself, despite its middle-of-nowhere location, is very nice! Clean and well-lit, lots of stores and friendly workers, and the bathrooms have nice smelling hand-soap. Everything is chrome and glass, which was a bit intimidating at first glance – very modern! Well all I have to do now is catch my connecting flight to Budapest and make it through Hungarian Customs and meet the minibus driver. Hopefully I’ll be on the plane in about an hour. I am so so so glad that I decided not to have a 10-hour layover in Brussels. Even though it is a nice and fancy airport, I know I have been here too long when all three announcements make the same amount of sense. 

                                      Looking out at the Brussels Airport