Well I'm on Day 3 here in the forest and all is good so far. I meant to write my first post while waiting for the plane a couple of days ago, so I guess we'll start there.
Normally I'm at the airport way earlier than necessary, so it was a little weird to check in, go through security, find my gate, and board almost immediately. I was in a middle seat, but it was just to Chicago, so it wasn't so bad. The flight was late coming in, though, and I only had 45 minutes between one flight landing and the next taking off in the first place, so late was not good. They made a request that those who did not have to make connecting flights please wait in their seats while those of us that did got off the plane. Well either every single passenger had a connecting flight or no one really cared because I was one of the last people to get off that plane. I basically ran to my gate, which was pretty far away considering it was in the same terminal. I wasn't the only one late, though, and there were some other flights even later than ours, so we waited for about twenty minutes for the remaining passengers to get in and board. (I was a good portion of the way through Star Trek: Into Darkness when I looked out the window and realized we hadn't gone anywhere.)
I sat next to a mid-60s woman named Pam who had temporarily abandoned her dental hygienist position to go to Nairobi and volunteer in an orphanage. I thought that was pretty cool.
The flight itself was uneventful, except that it got in kind of late. We flew in circles for about ten minutes before landing in Brussels. Then my luggage took forever, and I was a bit worried I wouldn't be able to find Kirsten and would have no way to reach her. But in the end my luggage came and Kirsten was right outside and we started home to Brasschaat.
The plan was to stay awake the whole first day so as to combat the jet lag early on. I was doing okay at first, but after going to the City Hall to get registered, attempting to open a bank account (apparently more complicated than it might seem), getting my phone set up, and meeting the kids, I was exhausted by 4:30. I went upstairs for a bit and fell asleep while trying to calculate how many hours I'd been awake. Karlyn woke me up an hour later to tell me dinner was ready ("Eten is klaar!") and I barely made it through without falling asleep at the table. I was in bed and asleep before 7pm.
I woke up the next morning feeling much less out of it, but also in a weird place. I was homesick and a little depressed and mostly just thinking, "What am I doing here? How am I going to handle this for the next nine months?" At that moment if someone had offered me the chance to go back and undo the whole thing, I might have said yes.
I went downstairs where the kids were eating breakfast (turkey sandwiches, interestingly enough) and getting ready for school, although they were running pretty late. Kirsten asked me what I like on my sandwich in the morning, and I had no idea what to say to that. (I ended up going with Nutella, if it matters.) We took the kids to school and once I was out of the house in the fresh air, I felt better about everything. We went home for a bit and I read a book that Joost had given me called The UnDutchables, which is basically about all the weird things Dutch people do. He also gave me some chocolate from his secret chocolate cupboard, and that was pretty great. Then at 10am, once the stores were open, we went out to give it another shot at the Mobistar Store, since my phone still wasn't activated. (It's all sorted out now.) After that we went to a drugstore to get some stuff, and then to a restaurant that Kirsten told me had the best waffles and pancakes, where her mom joined us. The waffle was a lot crisper than any waffle I've ever had, but it wasn't burnt. I just got mine with powdered sugar, but they had a lot of options. Waffles filled with cream, waffles with chocolate sauce, waffles half-filled with cream, waffles with cream on top, waffles with cream and fruit, waffles with chocolate AND fruit sauce, and on and on. I also got a coke, which they very Europeanly brought me in a glass bottle with a wine glass to pour it into.
Then we had to go home so Kirsten could pack for Italy. Kirsten's mom brought her to the airport and I stayed home to have some time to myself. I watched a little TV online before the kids got home from school and then we watched TV in the living room. I like to think I'm now pretty familiar with the Flemish children's TV show characters. There's Mega Mindy, who's a cop named Mieke with a superhero alter ego (and she's completely in love with Toby, another cop who apparently becomes Mega Toby later in the series); there's also a group of singing pirates, a rabbitclown named Bobo, Maya the Bee, and three backup singers who are apparently on every single show. Since I couldn't understand anything, I spent most of the time trying to figure out if the actress playing Mega Mindy was pregnant and that's why she wouldn't take off her trenchcoat and they only shot her from the chest up. (I did some research afterwards and she definitely was.)
Then we had dinner (spaghetti and meatballs) and dessert (pudding from a milk carton) and the kids played for a bit before we brought them upstairs and put them to bed at 8:30. I followed shortly thereafter and was asleep by 9.
And that gets you all caught up! I haven't really taken any pictures of anything yet, but I'm sure I'll get to it soon.
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