Frites, Beer, and Chocolate......Brussels......The 36hour detour to Dublin

As mentioned in the previous blog, there was no chance that Renee and I were going to make it to Dublin, or for that matter England with the way the standby situation was at the airport, so we hopped on the flight to Brussels. We had planned on visiting Brussels, but that was to be about midway thru the trip. If you could have seen us at the airport when our names were called, it was a sight to be seen as we were the last two standbys called. We may have been "those" passengers. As soon as we got on the flight (and of course asked a gentleman to switch with us) we pulled out the Ipad and bought tickets on Aer Lingus as the flight attendants were telling us to shut down our electronic devices. We could rest easy knowing that we had a confirmed way to Dublin, or at least Renee could. (anyone that knows her, knows that she can sleep ANYWHERE, and by that I mean, I had to put my neck pillow around her, so Chip (super cool guy from Las Vegas, sitting in our row, that offered his floor in his hotel room, if we didn't find a place to stay in a nice Dad kind of way) and I would stop laughing at her head bobbing.

The only problem was the fact that we really had not planned on being in Belgium, so we had no where to stay, and we had not done our research (because we had planned on doing it later). After we landed and waited 50 minutes thru passport control, we sat in the airport, bought Wifi for 6euros and looked up hostels. We booked the second one we found (only because the first one was booked) and it ended up being in a great location. The hostel called On the Go 2, was only 2 stops from the airport, 10 minute walk Grand Place Market, and a great central location for Brussels.

We first arrived at the hostel 5 hours before check in time, but the "front desk guy" was nice enough to let us shower while we were waiting to check into the room. Since it technically had been 2 days since we had taken a proper shower. We booked a luxurious bunk bed (made Ikea style, at which any moment I expected Renee to be on the bottom bunk with me) dorm room shared with 2 cool german chicks, 3 party english girls, one guy of Asian decent, 2 Italian boys (at least that's what the language sounded like) one british chick on holiday break from her chick, one quiet chick that never spoke and read her book, a mexican hippie, and a weirdo man that was from Snellville, GA and two super cool "older" American chicks, named Katie and Renee. Of course the super cool older chicks, not only took afternoon naps, but also were the first ones in bed.



We spent the first day roaming the streets, and admiring the beauty of an Old town. The Chocolate shops, churches, and buildings were absolutely amazing

We decided to eat out this evening and ended up at an Italian Pizzeria. Not your normal Pizza Hut, but a woodfire creation, with ham, artichokes, mushrooms, and fresh pizza sauce, but I can't lie, the best part was the 2euro local beer on draft and the view!

Wouldn't ya know, we were sitting across from two pilots! With my expert ease dropping skills, we became aquainted with two Air Canada pilots and even shared our chocolate with them. It was a great first night in Europe!

We were in bed by 10pm on the first night, and by far some of the oldest people in the room, but we were one the first ones up the next morning to enjoy our last 12hours in Brussels. We started our day the European way with some stiff coffee!!

illy coffee

We decided on the second day to try and find the "silver balls" that we saw out of the train window on the way from the airport to the hostel. The correct name of these Silver balls are the Atomium, and were apparently built for the world fair that took place in the 1950's. The Atomium looked pretty cool from the train, but they were even better in person. One of many pieces great peices of art in Brussels!

After we left The "silver balls" we headed back to the town square to have some famous Frites....aka French fries!! Brussels is known for not only there frites but the 50 different sauces you can choose to go with them. They lived up to their expectation and made for a cheap lunch! Highly recommended!!

After lunch we went back to the Hostel and hung in the common area for a couple hours before our flight to Dublin! Renee had officially experienced the hostel way of travel!!

We made it to Brussels airport and anxiously awaited our flight to Dublin, the place we were destined to go!

Thanks Brussels, you were great!! Til next time, Peace and Love ~KT~

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A little flight attendant lingo....

Well it's been a long 26 hours....where shall I start??

I guess I should start by telling you that we had decided to start our trip in Dublin. Although this was a pretty spontanious trip, we had booked a rental car and B&B in Ireland giving ourselves two days to get there. Sounded like a great idea, and plenty of time for travel woes as we would be flying standby. What I did NOT take into account is the the fact that Notre Dame and Navy are playing a football game in Dublin this coming weekend. So for those of you that have never flown standyby this means that pretty much all flights leaving from the East coast to Dublin are going to be full with "paying" passengers, and that standby was going to be a long shot!

Renee and I were dropped off at the airport yesterday (8/25) at approx 3:30pm. We were pretty confident as we had 4 flights to get us close to Dublin. I had came to the realilzation that we probably would not make Dublin, and came up with alternate routes such as getting to Manchester or Heathrow and taking the Ferry to Dublin. The excitment of our trip and our friendship must have got us thru the first night..the first flight we attempted was Dublin. We get to the gate and they start boarding the aircraft. We know at this point that it is going to be a long shot. About halfway thru the boarding process the gate agent comes across the PA and announces they are goinng to stop the boarding process, that there is a problem with the air conditioning, and they are going to bring matinenance out. (As a flight attendant, I know this is bad in many ways: #1 being the flight could be cancelled #2 gives revenue (paying)passengers more time to get to the gates, thus lessening the chance for us to get on...We immediately get up and start walking to the Manchester flight. This is our second best option. We sit there as patiently as we can and watch as the flight fills and our names stay at the bottom of the standyby list, only to hear the gate agent announce the flight is full. Cool, at this point Dublin has a new depature time. We go back to the Dublin gate, to only watch that flight fill up and the gate agent announce that the flight is full. Okay, at this point the stress level is pretty high, but we are still on our game, we still have two chances to make it to London as there are two Heathrow flight leaving. We go to each of those gates only to watch our name stay at the bottom of the stanby list, by the last flight we are saying a little prayer to the standby angels... Obviously they were busy as Renee and I did not make any flight on the first day..4 flights, and we are still sitting in the Atlanta airport.

At this point it is almost 11pm. We could have went home and slept, but we made a decision to stay in the airport. We had already gone thru security, we did not want to unpack our bags, and we knew if we went home we would only get about 6hours sleep anyway. So yes, we made concourse F the hotel de Katie and Renee! We went to the batroom, changed into out Pj's washed our face brushed our teeth and prepared to sleep on the floor.

We made a cozy spot on the floor around midnight and we woke up around 6am freezing!!! When I say freezing, I mean freezing. So cold that I waited for Brookstone to open around 7am only to pay $50 for a blanket and pillow combo. My nose and feet were so cold that I was willing to cuddle and share blankets at some point during the night. So cold that Renee was rocking this look, and I was rocking socks with flip flops. So COLD that you get the point.

We get up around 10am and head to the bathroom to get "refreshed" to start the day. We have hot tea, lunch and regroup. I have figured out by looking at the map that we just need to get somewhere in Europe and soon, as Hurricane Issac is moving in soon. I start looking at ALL options to get us to the other continent. It seems after looking at all the flights that Brussels, Belgium is going to be our best chance. I had downloaded an app on my Ipad called Skyscanner (that will check any flight going from one destination to another and give you all flight options and send you to the booking website. On a side note a great app for frequent travelers) and realized that once we arrrived in Belgium we could stay the night, explore, and then buy a ticket on Air Lingus farily resonable and get us to Dublin, and only be a day off track.

So Renee and I book for Brussels! We think that it is our best option, but after talking to the customer service agent, she looks at us and shakes her head. Seems as if today might be a repeat of last night, and at this point, I think that I might be getting to old for this spontanious "standby" stuff! We sit and wait, and inbetweeen waiting we her that there is going to be a Church service in the chapel at 200pm..We go,and we are the only two people there. Needless to say, we are the last 2 standbys to get on to Brussels, in Economy plus at that!! Cheers to persistence!!

 

 

and just some fun pics from the plane!!!

Til next time, Peace and Love ~KT~

 

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The map

The Katie and Renee map
Click to see our "tentative" plans!!

Til next time, Peace and love ~KT~

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Euro trip 2012... I'm back!!!

Trying to figure out this blogging thing on my iPad so I can post pics and stay in touch with my family and friends!!

Next weekend Renee and I will be trying to get anywhere close to the country of Ireland as it looks like all Dublin flights are oversold (all part of the adventure)

Our plans thus far

1st of all, not only are we are going to try and fit everything into this little back pack, we are going to make it work as this is all we have allowed for our selfs. (should be pretty interesting!)

Here is a picture of the bedroom that I have now turned into the "Europe" room....This should make for an interesting Friday night!!

We plan on going to:

~Ireland for a week

~England for a week

~and the rest of the 3 1/2 Weeks spent traveling to Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, and end in Germany to go to Oktoberfest for my 31st birthday!

this blog is short and sweet...getting used to the Ipad

Stay tuned, until next time

Peace and love ~KT~

 

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