But more about that later. The flight, yesterday, is worth mentioning too, and I've got some photos to go with that (you'll all love me for sharing those!) as well. It's going to take me a lot of time to write that already, so you'll hear more about the the day in Fort Lauderdale later (tomorrow is my last day off, so I figure I'll use that to comment on things).
Bart, his brother (who drove) and his mum picked us (that is me and my mum) up at around 7:40 or so. Had a quick greeting session and put all my stuff in the trunk of their large-enough-car. Did I say all my stuff? After 2 minutes or so, I came to the conclusion that I left my jacket on the couch. In my jacket was my passport with my visa, so I had Thomas (Bart's brother) turn at the next roundabout and stop at the front door again.
My jacket was literally the only non-furniture item still in the living room! I took it with me and sat down on the backseat again. After a reasonably easy drive of around 3 hours, we arrived at Dusseldorf International Airport. Waited around for the car to be parked, meeting up with everyone again, to take some action.
I got instructions to head down to terminal C, walk all the way through and check in. After another confirmation of having the proper course, somewhere along the way, Bart and I were ready to check in after he filled in one last piece of paper (for the time being). Bart, being as easy going as he is, only needed a small suitcase and a backpack to take everything he wanted/needed. Me, on the other hand, packed a little more than allowed, but the total weight of all our suitcases was still acceptable for two people, so no actions had to be taken.
Went on to eat something at Leonardo's (Ninja Turtles, anyone?) with all 5 of us, and just had an easy time there for a while. Called to see where Yatha was, to find out he was still on his way to the airport.
Went to go through the customs officers and everything, after saying goodbye to the relatives we left behind. It seemed like a really hard time for my mum, so I hope she managed to get through the day and everything, as she wasn't really looking forward to anything of this at all, the closer it got.
Sat down at gate C46 and after a while heard a familiar voice. Yatha also made it! Had to verify something, and found out that Bart was the odd one out, in terms of luggage, and that my suitcases weren't all thát bad.
Boarded the plane 30 minutes later than the expected time, but it all seemed fair enough anyway. We weren't due to take off for another 30 regardless. Then, the fun kicked in. We waited, and waited. And stared out of the window. And waited some more. And then got word from the captain (first in German, later in English) that there was an unidentified piece of luggage around that made it necessary for all of us to personally identify our suitcases so we could figure out what didn't belong in there.
Waited for a longer time to see what we needed to do exactly, but apparently they went on to scan all the labels again and connect those to the passengers that had borded to then see what they had, or didn't have.
About two and half hours later than planned. We took off! (see left side for a photo that was taken when we just got in the air, it's on of the airport's landing strips we flew over).
Had a lovely time flying, and it took a while. In between I saw a load of lovely air sights. A lot of clouds, in all shapes, forms and with lighting backgrounds. I'll share my favorites here too. Should be quite a few! Nothing else to see than clouds and water. Endless water. Really, whenever water becomes a problem for whoever, all they need to do is move to the grounds where the Atlantic hits land, and drink, use and save however much they can, there's plenty, I tell you (and please, don't go all serious on me for this).
Anyway, photos!
There, a bunch of aerial photos I loved taking (at least, I love the result of me hitting some settings and pushing the shutter button).After a long, but not boring while (watched the movie "What Happens In Vegas and made puzzles with Bart) we finally got around to hitting land. We were approaching Florida itself after we had flown along the coastline (be it quite a few miles out, I never got to see anything but water, after all). We flew over Fort Lauderdale on the way, and I managed to get a little photo of that too, but just missed the hotel on there, by the looks of it.
Went through the customs at this airport too, had fingerprints scanned again, and a photo taken, and went on to pick up the luggage, which was nicely there when we arrived. Put it on carts and walked towards the exit, where I passed a girl with a Dutch looking name on her badge, with a Hilton logo on it, to later realise that might have been there for us, despite the fact that we were told we'd get a male "collector" there. Addressed her and had my ideas confirmed. She then took us to mister John Saglam, the man with whom I'll be working a lot the coming year. As expected, we were picked up by a huge car. A nice Cadillac Escalade. Honestly, there are no small cars in this country! Up to now I've seen a few VW Golfs driving around, but other than that they don't get any smaller than your average family car. Lots of SUVs around and such.
After a nightly drive, taking around 30 minutes, we arrived at the hotel. I was sore, as I had to sit in between two seats in the back. The damn thing only had 4 seats, and we were with the 5 of us. I volunteered, and never gave in! Might not have been a bad idea to accept Yatha's offer to switch for a bit when my legs went numb, but still.
When we arrived we were greeted by a number of people. Got a very small tour to start with, and had something to eat in a newly opened restaurant/food market concept, which had only been in opration since monday. Had some really nice food there (baguette with cream cheese and red onions - I can recommend that to everyone, so simple but so good! - and later a Cuban Panini with all kinds of lovely ingredients on it as well).
Went to bed in my 2-person bedroom with five!! pillows on the bed, after I did everything I think I had to do. Will post some pictures of the room in my next entry. It's 0:15 now and I'm glad I don't need to write about today already, as that's also going to take ages for me to do, luckily I resized all the pictures already, so that helps.
Anyway, time for me to head to bed while most of you are about to get up, or have been awake for a bit already. Damn timezones at times.
I wanted to find you a song with a video, like everytime, but unfortunately, the band I picked (Falling Up) has never released this song in any way, and the live footage was in crap audio quality, so here's a still of the song "Flights".
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