In Belgium/Goals for the trip

In Belgium/Goals

I didn’t get my Stella Artois, but that’s okay. It’s 9 a.m. here (I think…if I’m reading a monitor right, which I’m probably not).

The last day has been crazy. I’m not sure how many hours I’ve lost or how much actual travel time I’ve had but it feels like it’s been years since I left Seattle. I could do the math and figure out how long it’s been, but that sounds really hard right now. I’m going to guess. My laptop says it’s 12:30 a.m. Pacific Time on June 30th. I left at 10 p.m. on June 28th. So it’s been 26.5 hours since I haven’t been in an airport. Right? Actually, 28.5 cause I was at SeaTac over two hours early. Wow. And I’m still at least eight hours from my final destination (maybe nine…clocks are confusing).

The Brussels airport is huge. I had to take a bus to get to the T terminal, where all the Africa flights fly out of. My gate was gate T69 but a flight to Kigali, Rwanda (where Semir Hasedzic currently is) took over that gate. I briefly thought about hopping on but realized that would screw up a lot of people’s plans. But I’d get to see Semir…

We’ll see what happens.

I had a Belgian waffle in Belgium, which is kind of cool. I also had a Vitamin Water and then realized I got the one with added calcium so now I have to wait another two hours to take my malaria pill. That’s not the worst thing. Subconsciously, I probably even did it on purpose. Those pills taste terrible, and when I took my first one in Philadelphia God knows how many hours ago I had a headache that rivaled the cornea ulcer ones. I’m hoping that was just a boredom headache from sitting in the baggage claim for six hours with the alarm going off every 2-3 minutes (it was probably closer to 10-20 minutes but it seemed like it was always on).

Outside the window I can see planes for EasyJet and Vuelling Air, which I flew to Budapest and Barcelona respectively during Rome. It made me smile. Even though I’m not really close to where I was a year and a half ago, it’s nice to be back in Europe, even if it is only for three hours. It feels good to have Euros in my pocket again, to accompany a quarter and two dimes I collected somewhere along the way.

I really want to go on the Internet but it cost six Euros for a half hour, and 10 for a full hour. I would have to use my credit card and I’m not sure I told them I would be in Belgium. I called Chase to let them know I’ll be in Sierra Leone for three months, but I’m 98% sure I left out my transfer point. Which was stupid. The last thing I want is my debit card (which I hope I won’t have to use at all in Sierra Leone but is still nice to have) to be frozen before my African adventure even begins.

It’s only 9:34 and I’m antsy. The T terminal is small, so I’m not too worried about missing my flight, I just want to know what gate to sit and type at. I also just want to get back on a plane and go back to sleep. I think it was about a 6.5 hour flight from Philadelphia to here and I was awake for about 20 minutes. Enough to eat dinner, breakfast and see us land. I did not witness the take off as I’m absolutely certain that I was the first person on board to fall asleep. That’s right! I was sleeping on Flight 75 before sleeping on Flight 75 was cool.

I feel like I should make some kind of list of goals for my trip to Sierra Leone. Ever since I was a kid everyone told me to “make goals! Make goals!” So I made goals. I wanted to be a fire truck. Then they said “make goals you can accomplish! Make goals you can accomplish!” So in order to make goals I can accomplish I think I’m going to wait until I get to Africa and see what those goals might be. Sure I already have a few ideas of things I’d like to do while I’m there, but I’m not sure if they’re feasible. Maybe I can be a fire truck in Sierra Leone, maybe not. We’ll see. I like to make realistic goals that I can accomplish, so that when I do I can feel good about myself.

Like my goal of being President of the United States. That one’s basically in the bag.

Uh oh. The Kigali flight is boarding. This is it. Decision time…
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Sorry buddy. I’ll see you in a few months.
Freetown, Sierra Leone, I’ll see you much sooner.
(I think. These clocks still have me really confused.)