When my time to leave Brussels finally arrived I’ll admit I was a bit melancholy about it. By the time I left, I’d be there for almost four months. I’d lived there, worked there, traveled there, made friends there and improved my French there. But things have to end and I eventually got over it.
My last few days passed in a daze of souvenir buying, fitting everything I'd amassed into two suitcases and making travel plans. My flight to Madrid left at 8:30 in the morning so I set the alarm for 6am. Fueled by the adrenaline of potentially missing my plane and not being able to leave Brussels, I was up and out of the house by 7am. I got to the Brussels airport at 7:20am and waited to check in. Pleased with my organization and promptness, I handed the Brussels Airline’s travel agent my passport and reservation with a smile.
“Hmm.”
Not a good sign. “Is there a problem?” I ask, my heart beating in my head.
“This ticket is in English,” says the woman, speaking perfect English. I’m still not sure if this was a question or a statement. I nod my head and she turns the paper to me.
“This isn’t your flight," she says precisely, as if I was a child. "The flight you booked leaves at 8:30pm. PM means night time.”
I wanted to hit her. OF COURSE PM meant night time!
To this day, I still don’t know what happened. The only thing I can think of is that I picked 8:45 am and then it was somehow changed to pm. So I could either pay to upgrade or wait for my actually flight at 8:45 that night. I ended up paying to upgrade. This story does have a silver lining. By paying I upgraded to first class and increased my baggage allowance. Which was fortunate because although I was allowed 20kg I brought 36kg. I would have had to pay €10.50 for each kilogram that I was over. And because I was so late (I had to wait in line to switch and then check in again), I didn’t have to pay for the six kilos I was over. So I actually ended up saving money. I also got a free breakfast on the plane. And then as I was leaving for dinner in Madrid, I got an email that my plane from Brussels had been canceled. So it was for the best.
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5 comments:
You lucky sonuva! Good work.
But I am afraid I have lost track of you; are you still in Spain? What is the dealio?
Nope, I'm in London (England) doing my masters in History of IR. What are you up to? I hear rumblings of thesis?
You're back!! Glad to see the blog is full of interesting information once more. And a postcard is on its way to London, as soon as I buy an international stamp.
I started it partly for you Joni. I miss your comments.
p.s. Google Reader is a wonderful thing huh?
Actually, I don't use google reader. One of the guys I work with was talking about touring Europe, so I was checking out your travel tips entry. And tah dah! There were new ones!
Postcard = on it's way.
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