Leaving on a Jet plane...

I wanted to be in NC as long as possible so I worked on Monday in NC when my flight was leaving Newark on thursday.  After work I hit the road and met up with some family for dinner in Asheville and then just kept going.  I managed to make it back to state college by 4:45 am where I slept a few hours got what I needed from my apartment and kept going.  Then it was a marathon of buy power adapters and several other items while trying to pack everything I needed. I was particularly worried about my two piece racing paddles that needed to be in my check bags. But I cleverly slid them down the legs of my jeans and wrapped them in towels and various other clothes.

My first flight left Newark at 6:19pm and would arrive around 7:30am in Brussels.  The flight was pretty uneventful I got a little sleep. After landing in Brussels I had to go through customs and got the very first stamp in my passport.  I had a couple hours before my next flight so I wandered around the airport a bit. Being Beligum they had a Beer and Chocolate store that was simply amazing, too bad it was 8am and I was feeling the jet lag otherwise I would have sampled both.  Since I was feeling pretty tired I just napped a bit in the airport and ended up getting a bit of sleep.  I made my connection flight to Geneva and thats when things started to get interesting.

I found the baggage claim just fine but my bags never showed up. As I started to fear that they both somehow manage to get lost I frantically searched everywhere in the baggage claim area.  I'm still not sure how this happened but both my bags were on a cart in far corner of the room but thankfully they were both there and appeared to be intact. I was excited about the thought of traveling by myself in another country, right up until the point where I had to carry all my luggage by myself more than 20ft. I have two check bags which are both very near 50lbs and my carryone is around 30lbs. After some strategic moving I was able to get some euros as well as swiss francs.  Then began the whole bus adventure. Allegedly the hotel I was staying at offered hotel shuttles, but not at the hour I was there so I needed to catch a bus.  After wandering to just about every help desk on both floors of the airport I managed to get about 4 different sets of directions for the same bus.  After trial and error I managed to find the right stop and with the help of a stranger even bought the right ticket.  At the time of day I was there the bus I needed only ran once an hour so I had some waiting to do. The right bus came right on time and I was off.  I even got off at the right stop and found the hotel.  I checked in and things started getting better.

After I got checked in I took a much needed shower and then headed out to walk around for a bit.  A bakery called my name and I had to try the crossaint and eclair.  I promptly headed back where I unexpectedly fell asleep for about 3 hours and then woke up to get dinner with Marin and Katia.
Katia speaks french which was very helpful with ordering food as my bakery experience consisted of me putting money on the counter and pointing at things.  The food so far has been a bit pricey by my cheap standards but very good. After dinner we walked around a bit and even found an old castle before calling it a night.