In which long hours become shorter than you might expect.

Well, we're here. Brussels. But I'm already ahead of myself.

Welcome to my online home. I'm glad you came. Step in while I unbutton my sweater in favor of a sportier, zip-up one. Oh, right. can't forget the house shoes.

We finished up getting ready to head to Belgium and Spain at about 3:21 am, and left the house at about 3:45am. Doug, let me just tell you again what an awesome guy you are. There I said it.

The flight over was surprising, to say the least. I highly recommend Jet Airways. They treat you like royalty even though you could only afford seats in steerage.

We spent about a half hour trying to find out where our luggage went, turns out American Airlines ended up not putting it on the flight from JFK to Brussels, but no worries. God is in control, even in silly little things like where you're going to find a pair of socks since all yours are 4000 miles away on a rainy airfield. We were given 100 Euros (hereafter referred to as E, i.e., E100) to get started, and were able to turn that into pants, a sweater, lunch, coffee. Excellent.

We spent dinner in a tavern across from our hotel, we met a man there who traveled to 'Frisco' about ten years ago and wants to go back. I hope we run into him again. The people here are very sweet and patient with the idiot who didn't realize that Belgians speak french. I like them so far.

Tomorrow, to Bruges.