It’s early morning, but my body says it’s two am.
I’m sitting in the Brussels airport at some nice lounging area in front of Espirit. The airport here is very Hong Kong style if you’ve ever been there. Oh and there’s almost no need to say this, but European people are so European - I’m bloody well jealous. Except there’s a woman of unknown origin sitting across from me half staring at me.
Charlotte had free wifi – which was great (fyi for your future flights.) For the past month or so, everyone’s been asking me if I’ve been excited for Spain. Compound with the fact that I caught a slight cold that dulled my emotions, my answer’s been more or less: neh. But for some reason, it all hit me at once that I’m going to Europe. Yea. Europe. For a month. I freaked at CLT.
Shortly before freaking out.
On the way to Philly, there was a bit of stormy weather so we had to keep doing right turns for like 45 minutes. Apparently, that’s a holding pattern. So once I got to the airport, I had just enough time to:
a. Realize Philly’s airport is way nicer than Charlotte’s.
b. Marvel at the plethora of shopping.
c. Marvel at the plethora of human beings.
d. Buy some American candy for my host fam.
e. And immediately realize that my flight is definitely an international flight.
Sitting at the gate heading to Belgium, I started looking at the people about to board. I immediately spotted this trendy, hipster dude - you can imagine. Then I spotted a couple more European looking guys. Then I thought back to my Charlotte to Philly flight – there were so many sweatsuits I could’ve swore I was at the gym. Definite difference at the gate alone.
I realized how intricate airports are. You have thousands of people tracing their own intricate paths all over the airport and then out into the world. Add their carry-on luggage and one personal item. Multiply this by their two or even three bags. Then divide those bags into those which are staying in, say, Philly as their final destinations and those which need to go with their owners to their connecting flights. That’s what I realized when I looked out the window of the plane and saw the people below doing all the grunt work and putting the luggage into the plane. Honestly, what a b*****. This sounds awful but thank goodness someone does the grunt work. And thank goodness for technology. At least it’s made it easier for everyone – keeping track of where passengers go, what planes are with which gates, where luggage goes, what time planes are coming in, making sure planes don’t collide, etc.
So in contrast, it’s been kind of interesting seeing what kind of people do the grunt work here in Belgium. Lots o’ white people, I’ll tell you that. Oh and everyone here speaks French. All the signs here have at least two languages: French and English. Sometimes they have German and Flemish too. This woman told me that most Belgians can speak three languages. This sounds horrible, but thank goodness I live in America, and I already know the world’s universal language. Mad respect to everyone else in the world. Man, I hope they don’t change that for a while (China!)
On the plane, I sat next to this nice Italian(?) family (couldn’t recognize what they were speaking but def heard some familiar Spainish words.) Instead of trying to be nice to their daughters, I decided to just keep neutral and stay to myself and that ended up making things slightly awkward for me. Other than that, I picked the worst part of the plane to sit in ever.
I think I picked the airplane’s equivalent to a daycare.
Awkward Italian family next to me + screaming (and I mean screaming) infant + little toddler behind me who decided to use my head/back as a personal footrest and proceed to have a seizure against my seat for the ENTIRE 6 AND A HALF HOURS = hellish.
At least I managed to cross some movies off my movies-I’ve-seen list and get in some reviews:
Letters to John: boring but decent but mostly boring.
Mr. Fantastic Fox: holy cannoli, I loved this movie. Imagine The Royal Tenenbaums but more clever and involving way more animals.
Had one of the best airplane meals since I flew on HK Air when I was little (it was still airplane food though.)
But the greatest thing I witnessed was staring out of the airplane window. I saw us cross the threshold into the Atlantic Ocean – something I’ve never done before. It’s amazing how an airplane carrying a couple hundred people could survive to cross an entire ocean plus half a continent (and yes, if you know me, this is one of those “wow, X, Y and Z amaze Connie. No, really, it really really amazes her” kind of things.)
Yea.
(Caution: enter dramatic mode) I saw us enter past shredded cotton clouds and enter a world where we were just this floating metal bird completely physically isolated from anything else. I saw the moon chase the sun into another time zone. I saw the sun set on a cloud-clad horizon. And I saw the sun tag the moon back at sunrise. I traveled forward in time. I saw time change. I saw the world turn.
Flying over Europe
When we started flying over Brussels, I saw little plots of dusty brown and dull green carved out by roads that made the landscape look like dry, cracked skin. I saw little tiny insect cars crawling around on their owners´ individual paths. I saw intricately manicured carpets of farmland.
Brussels, Belgium
No wonder people are obsessed with model airplanes. And to the smart people out there, thank you for making our world better.
The exchange rate sucks.
(If I’m not lazy,) more to come.