Our trip began last Wednesday around 8 AM as we set off for the airport and our all day/night trip to Brussels. Autumn did surprisingly well...waving to anyone and everyone we passed as usual :o) She fell asleep on Jacob about half way through the flight to Chicago...I've never seen her this fast asleep either...when we were deboarding the plane we had to hold her head b/c it was just bobbing all over the place! Haha! Then when we got to our gate I immediately ran up to the person at the desk to request the row on the plane with the bassinett for Autumn. She was probably a little big for it, but she did sleep in it for a few hours so it was really nice to have. Jacob tried to video it, but it was kinda dark so it didn't work too well. When we arrived in Belgium we somehow managed to cram our four HUGE suitcases into our tiny car (we thought it was a minivan from the description, but it's a pretty tiny little hatchback ford). Thankfully we all were able to fit...although my knees were in my chest the whole ride...haha!!
We were supposed to be meeting Julie our relocation specialist at our apartment at 10 AM to get the keys...as we left the airport at 9:30 though I was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen. And sure enough...we didn't arrive at the apartment till after 11! It was so frustrating...we brought our garmin from home and Jacob had downloaded the Europe program for like $100, but the entire time we drove in circles around the city as the garmin was "searching for sattelite"...what a joke! Since the skies here are mostly grey all the time we're either going to be buying a new navigation system (preferably a tom tom) that can get a signal through the clouds or hopefully one will come in our company car! Cross your fingers...Jacob picks the car up from work tomorrow so we'll see!!
We did make it to our apartment though and Jacob had the brilliant idea to book a night at a hotel right across the street so we dumped all our suitcases in the apartment, packed up a few things and headed over! And then we all napped...it was fantastic! I know they say when coming to Europe you're supposed to stay up as long as you can before crashing for the night, but really our two trips to Brussels I have taken a 2 hour nap in the afternoon and then stayed up till like 10 that night and it's worked so much better than when we went to Ireland and I stayed up till like 6 PM...crashed for a few hours and woke up at midnight with the worst headache I've ever had!
The next morning we headed to the new place and waited (for like 5 hours with nothing to do or sit on!!) for our air freight to arrive. I have to admit too when they unpacked it all it was nothing...I totally blew it on considering what we might want/need here for our first few weeks! I forgot chairs, towels, bed linens (thankfully I did remember the sheets before we left and packed some in the suitecases), pillows, utensils, a pot/pan, plates...basically any and all kitchen stuff except for a few things for Autumn. Thankfully at ikea we found many of these things for cheap so we'll survive the next few weeks, but it is not fun! I'm hoping to find a kitchen table and chairs this week so we can atleast stop sitting/eating on the floor! Luckily we did ship Autunn's high chair so she is eating in style!
I was really apprehensive about the language barrier too, but so far everyone has been really nice...we kinda try to speak French, but they pretty quickly catch on that we have no idea and switch right to English. I think the only person I've encountered that couldn't speak it was the lady at the hotdog stand yesterday when buying Autumn lunch...haha! We did ok though...the only word I couldn't get was sour kraut...and she just showed me it so I knew then to say "ew, no"!! Haha!
I should probably sign off for now...we're just stealing internet from some unsuspecting neighbors so who knows when I'll be able to check in again!! Our actual internet service is coming in a few weeks! Yikes! Hope everyone back home is doing well and we'll be able to talk again soon!
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