Wow

It's finally hitting me. I'm in Europe. Once I got on the plane yesterday, I started realizing this was actually happening. It still seems so surreal. Even now, having been in the Brussels airport for 5 hours I can hardly believe I'm here.

The trip has been uneventful so far. The drive to the city went well -- traffic wasn't bad at all. We got to the airport a little later than I would have liked but I checked in with plenty of time and then headed over to my gate. I was resigned to paying and extra $100 for luggage so that I could take two pieces and because one of them was overweight. When I got to the counter, the attendant let me switch some stuff from the one bag so that only one was overweight. Then she only charged me the $50 for it being overweight -- nothing for the second bag! Maybe that was just another confusing detail on the website that I misunderstood. In any case, I definitely didn't mind it!

My first flight wasn't anything unusual. We left late but made up some of the time in the air... not that it mattered for me! Overall, I was pleased with Jet Airlines. The entertainment selection was well-rounded (I watched Date Night and part of Avatar), the cabin wasn't too cold, free headphones, pillow, and blanket, dinner and breakfast were fine. I did learn a lesson the hard way though. If you are eating Indian food and there is a small green bean looking thing.... DON'T eat it! My mouth was on fire for way too long even with drinking water and sprite and eating the rest of my dinner. I didn't get as much sleep as I would have liked, but that's to be expected. My big project for the next few hours is simply to not fall asleep before I get to my new flat in Budapest. I don't leave Brussels for another three hours then it's a two hour flight and probably at least another hour or two before I actually get "home." I'm excited to see what my flat is like.... but mostly I'm excited about the prospect of sleeping in a bed tonight.

Thank God for the Internet. I really can't imagine what I would do without it... well, that's not exactly true. I'd read, play games, pray (fun story... I knew from the website that the Brussels airport had a chapel. I wandered up there once I got to the right terminal and such. There was a priest getting ready to say Mass so it was perfect timing. Kind of funny though because I was the only one there and he was French - Thank God I'm Catholic! I might not know much French but I know the Mass. When he came to give me Holy Communion it was funny because he got flustered and forgot the word for blood. I didn't know enough French to tell him that I knew what he was saying so it really didn't matter what language he used.) ANYWAY, I'm still glad to have the Internet. I'll probably spend most of the next few hours on just to get my money's worth (it was 10E for an hour or 20E for the day). I figured out the hotspot shield download and it's working so I'm able to watch American TV, Hulu, listen to Pandora etc. I'm getting banner adds on websites, but that's a price I'm willing to pay.

More Later...