Brussels Bonus!

Because of a little glitch with the travel agent, our layover was bumped to a full day in Brussels, including a night in the COOLEST Holiday Inn in the world.

We landed in the morning, checked in to the hotel, grabbed a couple sandwiches from the hotel lobby and then found ourselves on a train to the heart of the city.

The Grand Place

This is going to sound crazy, but this city smells wonderful. We stepped off the train and the waft of sugar filled our noses. There were waffle stands on every corner! Our group of 5 got to walk around the city, eat Belgium chocolate, and drink heavenly coffee laden with whip cream.  There were street performers, flower vendors and groups of local elementary school children on field trips with their teachers. It was quite picturesque and the weather was outstanding to boot.  I’ve already started my campaign to convince Nick we should move there. THERE ARE WAFFLE STANDS ON EVERY CORNER!

This small layover also provided the opportunity to get to learn more about the people in our group. Here is some trivia for our reading audience.

Katie: I’ve given her the title “Medical Director of Galileo School trips.”  She’s a nurse, an avid runner and she has a habit of joining mission trips with people she doesn’t know. (Case in point, joining this Galileo School trip)

Georgianna: Galileo School founder. She has a serious speed reading problem. There was a time when she flew through 90 books a year. WHAT?!

Scott: Galileo School founder, married to Georgianna. When feeling spicy, this IRS software programmer can bust out some awesome boot-scooting-boogie moves.

This morning we woke up early, dined on chocolate croissants, yogurt, sausage and fresh fruit before we caught the shuttle back to the airport.  When at the airport we were instructed to head to the “Africa Travel Check-In” counter. It was here we noticed the 3 very distinct types of travelers that head to Africa.

•         The obviously native African. They have traditional dress, speak in wonderfully guttural languages and usually have boxes of appliances that they are checking as bags.
•        The older white gentlemen in safari wear.  These men are either American or western European. They are wearing monochromatic shades of tan and white and they usually have the ideal safari hat to   coordinate with their uniform.
•         Hippies. They have backpacks, a tan from their days in the sun, cool accessories such as a woven bracelet or shell necklace.  They are mostly western European and travel in pairs.

I’m not sure which category we fell into.  Nick and I have backpacks, but we don’t have the unique jewelry nor sun burned cheeks. Scott has a safari hat, but is not wearing the coordinating outfit.  Maybe we are a hybrid of the last 2. Safar-pies? Hip-aris?

We have a short layover in Rwanda and then we land in Entebbe, Uganda tonight. We will land about 9:30pm and then drive into the capital city, Kampala. Tomorrow we will hook up with the other 2 members of our team (Chris- Galileo School board member, and Ann- documentary film maker) who are flying in on a different route.

BTW- The in-flight movie on the airplane to Uganda is a nature show about leopards. Every time I look up, I get an eyeful of leopards mating. This is going to be a long 9hrs.


P.S. I wrote this post on the plane. Update: We have arrived to our hotel in Kampala & it has wifi! We are going to stay one more night here before we head north into the Gulu/Bul Kur area.