Traveling to Europe

It seems that just about everyone is starting a blog these days. I have resisted this trend until now. I've been invited to speak at FOSDEM in Brussels, Belgium. Not being overly fond of traveling large distances, I decided that if I was really going to spend the better part of a day crammed in a long steel tube as it hurtles through the upper part of the world's atmosphere, I had better make it worth my while. FOSDEM was kind enough to pay for my travel expenses for the weekend, but I decided to extend my stay to a week, and bring Lisa along too.

Thus, the reason for this blog. Lisa apparently feels that in addition to us traveling to Belgium, we should document the entire process.

People might be interested in reading about it. Or something.

Our journey began on Saturday, the 16th of February. We arrived at San Francisco Airport, with Dallas as our first destination. There we would leave Jackson with our good friends, Larry and Tina, who would care for him while we were in Belgium. Naturally we have convinced ourselves that this is entirely because Jackson would not enjoy a long flight across the Atlantic, and has nothing to do with us wanting time to ourselves on a vacation and so forth. We are good, loving, normal parents. Really.

Anyhow, our flight was late. Apparently there were thunderstorms in Dallas, and once a plane got struck by lightning, and so they don't like to let planes land while the storm continues over the airport. This caused a backlog, and so our plane was not allowed to take off on time.

This meant that young Jackson needed to be entertained. It was past his nap time, but we didn't want him to nap. We were saving that for when he was on the plane.

Instead, Jackson found a sloped area in the airport, and decided it was the best artificial hill he had ever seen. He ran up it and down it and up it and down it. Over and over again. Incredibly amusing stuff.

Finally the plane boarded. Jackson would be in our laps. The battle plan was to keep him entertained, give him a bottle, and then hopefully get him to sleep. It mostly worked. He did throw his bottle a few times, landing it in other passenger's laps, but he never cried, and we did get him off to sleep.

He slept most of the flight, only awaking toward the end. We had to circle around Dallas-Fort Wort airport for a while: the storms were still going on. And there was turbulence. Lots of turbulence; the plane shook around like mad. The plane was dead silent. Dead silent except for

Jackson: he was laughing like crazy. Apparently turbulence is very funny. I'm sure he'll love getting to go on a roller coaster.

We arrived in Dallas. Dragging six bags and a baby through an airport isn't "trivial", but we somehow managed it. We got everything together, and went and visited Amy, who recently had hip surgery, before retiring to our hotel.

The next morning we had breakfast with some of our friends from Dallas, and performed the dreaded "hand over". We tried to quietly slip out and leave Jackson with Larry and Tina, but of course he noticed and started crying. Oh well. Like I said, we're not bad, horrible parents. Really.

We left and drove to the airport. We weren't sure how far ahead we'd have to arrive for an international flight, so we hurried. We of course called Tina to make sure Jackson was doing okay. Not that we had contingency plans to cancel our trip if he wasn't. We're not bad, horrible parents. Really.

Of course, our plane was late, so all the hurrying was unnecessary. We finally got our flight, to Chicago, before taking off for Brussels. The long, horrible trans-Atlantic leg of our journey.

I find it very hard to sleep unless I'm incredibly comfortable. I've never been incredibly comfortable on a plane, so I didn't expect to sleep. Lisa sleeps much more easily.

Unfortunately we didn't get a row with a power outlet, so laptop based entertainment was only available for around two hours. Fortunately, I had bought Lisa an iPod Touch for our anniversary; she had really wanted it, honest! Lisa slept, while I entertained myself with the iPod Touch. She had downloaded some interesting lectures, and then I listened to music. The iPod Touch and iPhone will be much better when third party software is available, though.

We finally arrived in Brussels, the next morning. Immigration was crazily easy to get through. We didn't have to fill out any forms. We didn't have to declare that we aren't members of the Communist Party, weren't associated with Germany's National-Socialist Party between 1931 and 1945, and aren't on speaking terms with Osama bin Laden.

I was even more surprised there was no customs procedure at all. No forms. No speaking to anyone. We weren't even asked if we had anything to declare.

We noticed a mobile phone store in the airport. We wanted to investigate renting a phone, since neither of our phones from the US were compatible with the networks used in Europe. We did manage to rent a phone, after agreeing to have 1200 euros 'reserved' on our credit card. Just in case we talked that much. I guess some people do.

Rather than trying to navigate Brussels' public transport system while exhausted and hauling our luggage about, we decided to catch a taxi to our hotel. So out we went to find one. We were pointed in the direction of where the taxi stand was.

There was a line. A long line. One that snaked past a barricade. Were all these people really waiting for taxis? There must have been several hundred people in the line, and more were arriving by the minute. We asked someone, and they nodded, yes this was indeed the line for taxis.

Of course, their nod could really mean "je ne parles pas Anglais", and we could be waiting in line to get on a bus that would whisk us away to some strange destination. Considering how long the line was, it did seem hard to imagine that there would be enough taxis to service all these people.

But taxis came. Hordes of taxis. Someone was directing the taxis.

Organizing it so three or four could arrive at once and pick people up, before speeding away, leaving more taxis in a queue of taxis to come.

The line moved quickly. A quarter of an hour later we were at the front of the line, and were ourselves, whisked away to our hotel: The Novotel off Grand Place.

Our adventures in Belgium had begun.