UGGHHHH! I had this whole thing typed out and then the computer froze.
Deep breaths.
Part 4...An airplane, an airplane, and an airplane
**Author's Note: This installment is boring. So boring that I had a heck of a time getting through it. I'd often find myself falling asleep whilst typing, waking up in a puddle of drool. Boring. Like The Cabbage Soup Diet. Boring. Like vacuuming. Boring. Like Crocs. It's the Little Twelvetoes of my Trip Report. I hope. I mean, I hope it doesn't get any more boring than this.**
Now, if man
Had been born with six fingers on each hand,
He's probably count: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, dek, el, do.
Dek and el being two entirely new signs meaning 10 and 11 - single digits.
And his 12, do, would've been written: one - zero.
Get it?
That'd be swell, to multiply by 12.
Oh, Schoolhouse Rock! You've taught us so much about Prepositions and Elbow Room! Dek, el, do? Really?
As excited as everyone always is to get to Disney World, the ‘getting there’ is, frankly, sucky. Get to the airport 2 hours early, stand in line, get your tickets because you can’t print them online for some reason, flash your passports so you don’t have to say ‘I don’t speak Flemish,’ weigh your bags, rearrange the weight in the bags because one kilo over in one bag does matter, even if you’ve got 15 available kilos elsewhere, walk 3 miles to security, stand in line again, find your gate, and wait. Wait, wait, wait.
Sound familiar? No? Then count your blessings! Right now!
That’s really just the beginning of the suckitude of the day for us. We’re lucky enough to travel on not one, not two, but THREE aircrafts for a grand total of 13 hours. Not including layovers.
This is all the best case scenario. BCS.
How often do BCS’s work out? 2% of the time? 9%? Dateline should do a 3-part expose and let us know so we can be more prepared. Stone Phillips, call me.
We got up and going just fine. Got the kids dressed and brushed and got the ‘morning’ things packed in the bag that has been meticulously packed for our one night at Pop (yes, there was other crap in there, but the Pop crap needed to be in ONE bag only) and put all the bags in the Car-That-is-Used-for-Airport-Travel (and IKEA, if I’m honest). BCS.
We were on the road about 5 minutes behind schedule. I’d still give that a BCS.
The drive from our house, which is less than a mile from the border of France, to the Brussels Airport is about 45 minutes to an hour. We wanted an hour to get there, as we knew once we got very close to Brussels, the traffic would be medium-thick at that 9-ish hour.
What we didn’t expect was some sort of hay truck accident/incident not far from our home. Traffic was STOPPED for quite some time.
After 15 minutes of not really moving, we were worried.
At 30 minutes, dh started biting his nails. Worse than usual, even.
At 45 minutes, I started wondering how close we’d be allowed to cut it, what with flying to the States and all.
At 60 minutes we finally got by the hay problem. I was fidgety and freaking and stressed, oh my. We had driven less than 10 miles in an hour and still had most of our trip ahead of us. We were supposed to be at the airport by then.
No more BCS.
I was honestly frea-king-out.
When we finally arrived at the airport, dh went with ds to find a more-expensive-than-Disney-at-Christmastime parking spot, and I took dd, two suitcases, and two carryons and went to find the check in desk thing. They have them set up in rows here, so first you have to find your flight number on a big screen and then go to your row. It’s all very complex if you are an hour late for your flight. We found it, though, and sat and waited for 17 eons for the other half of our party to join us.
When they arrived, there was officially no one waiting to check in anymore, since we were so late. But, we were fine! We got checked in and to our gate with no problems. Dance of Joy!
Walking the looooong walk to the gate with a 50 pound pack on my back made me feel a little bit like a Sherpa. Dang those people work hard! (Sherpa Shoutout!)
OK, so let’s skip the 13 hours on the aircrafts plus layovers, shall we? I mean this chapter has been so boring I can hardly write it.
But I do have ONE question. Why will dd watch
Cars, Finding Nemo, Chicken Little, et al. at home with no problem, but when trapped on a 9-10 hour plane ride across the Atlantic, she becomes Little Miss Anti-movie?
It happens every time we fly across the Atlantic. This flight from Amsterdam to Memphis has a movie screen and tons of movies to choose from built in to the seat in front of you. This is her 4th Atlantic crossing and 3rd time that she’s just not been interested in all the movie watching (they didn’t have it on our flight from Memphis to Brussels. Or whatever the flight was 9 months ago. I have blacked out the exact details).
Have I mentioned that although the kids have flown 4 times across the Atlantic, this is the first time their father has done this journey with them? True story.
Anyway, after flying for-flippen-ever, we arrived at MCO and so did our luggage! I chose not to have Magical Express pick up our luggage for us, because I knew chances were good that it would be delivered very late (since it was already 10 pm-ish) or in the morning and we would be too tired for such things.
Magical Express was painless and we arrived at Pop with no problems. We were given our key and after walking about 2-3 miles, we finally found our room.
We changed clothes and ran out to do an hour or two of EMH.
No, not really. We fell into bed. Sleep is so much sweeter after you’ve been awake for 23 hours and traveling with two kids.
We needed our sleep, because tomorrow the Briarmom family was going to make Briarmom and Mastercard very happy. We were about to spend some serious coin at the Mall.
Of course, that's the BCS. And we don't need Stone Phillips to tell us that those don't always work out...
(I'm just sayin! The Europeans use TP, too!)
scared1: ) asthma medication (dd) and hair extensions (so super cute!) and you've got 5 bags.
