Unsuccessfully trying to catch some sleep
We have throughly enjoyed spending time with our family Marlies and Eef these past few days. I want to thank them for their wonderful hospitality and sweet natures. Visiting, washing, packing and catching up on websites was what our last few days consisted of.
We went out to dinner to have one more meal of Babi Panggang which is a Chinese/Indonesian pork dish and can only be found (or so we have noticed) is in Holland and some areas of Belgium. It is so good and Han needs to learn how to prepare this. : )
Okay so our daily dose of reality bites us in the butt again.
We had train tickets to shuttle us from Heerlen in the Netherlands to Brussels International Airport in Belgium at 7:30pm. We had to transfer in Maastricht Netherlands on the train to Hasselt Belgium, where we were “supposed” to transfer to Brussels Airport, spend several 4 hours in the airport to be there in time to check-in at 4:00am, for our departing flight to Orlando at 7:00am.
Sooo….no train to transfer to when we arrived at Hasselt because our train was 6 minutes late getting into the station. We were supposed to have 18 minutes to get ourselves to the connection, plenty of time said the online information (after all European trains are supposed to be right on time. Well not this time. With no more trains running until the early morning hours, we felt we had no other choice but to catch a taxi to the airport about 50 miles away at this point, for the extravagant amount of Euro 170.00 ($200)!! Standing outside at midnight, in a seemingly sketchy area which is practically abandoned at that time of night, was not an attractive alternative, so we swallowed it once again. There was one very nice gentleman working for the train system who called the taxi for us.
Less than an hour later we drove into the Brussels Airport where we were waiting for 4 hours; no restaurants were open so I ate M&M’s for dinner, tried to sleep some (FAILED) and we finally saw some movement around us. I walk around to see where to check-in, and low and behold, find out our flight has been cancelled due to electronic issues or something and was now scheduled for Wednesday morning, August 24. As I am walking back, I am trying to figure out how to tell Han. We are both already worn out and stressed. There is that moment where you fall apart or decide to laugh it off. We decided to laugh.
We had to gather up our luggage and go pick up our comped hotel room and meals at the Sheraton, which is literally located within a stone’s throw of the front entrance of the airport. I have to say the room was luxurious and the buffet meals were well planned, nutritious and tasty. Had the opportunity to chat with multiple people in the same boat per-say, and this lightened the mood by sharing travel stories. Our airline Jetair, which is a subsidiary of TUI, a large international tour-operator, showed class by putting us up in this manner.
But here is the question. Is it just me imagining this, or does Europe really want me to stay here?
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