I Guess This Is Really Happening

   Our flight to Brussels departs on Friday and, not unexpectedly, there is a bit of mad dash by both of us to make sure we have everything we need. I have been checking Brussels weather and it looks like we will have temperatures in the low to mid 50's with rain about a 50-50 shot so we need to be ready for cool possibly wet weather. There are always the questions, "Have I packed enough?', "Have I packed too much?", "What if I forget.......?" when a trip is fast upon one. I try to convince myself that I will pack light, but inevitably come home with some clothes that never see the light of day on the trip. That's okay. The plan is one checked bag and a backpack carry on. We'll see how the plan works. Having apparently channeled my late mother-in-law, I think I have most of my packing done. It remains to be seen if my suitcase will close. I know I should be working on losing a bit of weight prior to departure, but I may need a couple of extra pounds so I can sit on the suitcase and zip it shut. Since we don't know if we will be fed sufficiently on the cruise, I am sure we will both come home and our clothes will just be hanging on us 😜. We may have difficulty forcing our suitcases to close for the return trip.

  We plan to arrive at the airport about 3 hours prior to departure and hope the government shut down will not impact our flight to Brussels. We connect in Munich and I believe our time in Munich is about 1 hour and 45 minutes so we will keep our fingers crossed. We will take BART to SFO. BART terminates at the international terminal at SFO so getting to check in is quite easy. We'd both rather have time to spare at the airport rather than making a mad dash once we get there. 

  Looking forward to the trip, but not the inevitable jet lag.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Impressions of Brussels

Image
  After a good night of sleep we feel refreshed. In spite of our best intentions, we did not even make it to 8:00 pm last night, but we slept well; and with the additional hour we got due to the time change, we got up feeling well rested this morning. This morning we had a tour of Brussels via bus and on foot. Brussels is divided between the upper city and the lower city. Our Hotel, the Stiegenberger Icon Wilthcher's is in the upper city and the highlight of the tour, the Grand Place, is in the lower city. Along the way we passed various types of architecture spanning from the 15th century to the 20th century and found that the modern architecture is quite sterile and unappealing compared to the older architecture. Since Brussels has medieval roots, the many of the streets are narrow and windy and cobblestoned. Cobblestones can be tricky because they are not always even and occasionally one or two may be missing, so exercise care when walking and wear sensible walking shoes, not sh...
Read more

From Amsterdam

Image
   We had a couple of pretty full days and so finding time to update the blog was not easy. Our time in Enkhuizen was fun. We arrived and boarded buses for Hoorn. This was a wealthy seaport in the Golden Age of the Netherlands during which the Netherlands became very wealthy thanks to the Dutch East Indies Company. Cape Horn in Africa takes its name from a Dutch trader. Hoorn is another charming old Dutch city and we were quite glad that we took this excursion. After our time in Rotterdam, it was nice to experience old Dutch charm. There was no rain for us in Hoorn, but the wind was cold and necessitated bundling up against the elements. We ate with some Canadians at dinner, and even they found Hoorn cold. We opted out of our afternoon tulips and windmills excursion. We must not have been thinking when we booked the excursion. There are no tulips to see at this time of the year, and we already had a windmill excursion. We will be more careful when we book our Vietnam and Cambo...
Read more

Our Next Trip Is Soon Upon Us

   Patti and I leave next Friday for our Viking cruise from Brussels to Amsterdam. We have added two day extensions in both Brussels and Amsterdam so will be gone for two weeks. We both believe we are at a time in our lives when it is important for both of us to do as much traveling as possible because we love to travel and realize that we are not as young as we used to be (we aren't?????😲). We had such a good exoerience with Viking on our cruise from Istanbul to Rome that we are sold on Viking and have a cruise with them to Vietnam and Cambodia scheduled for early next year. Our cruise excursions are booked and confirmed and we are looking forward to new adventures in Europe. Tickets to Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam have already been purchased for the day before we fly back from Amsterdam to San Francisco. We have our flu and covid vaccinations taken care of and now need to focus a bit on the right clothes for the weather. We are sure we will not experience temperatures re...
Read more