Getting to Leuven

May 15/2012 - 15:10 - Our Flat at Jozef 2 Straat - Leuven

  Finally - the horrible fight process is over and I am getting settled into Leuven, Belgium.  After I finished the last blog post, the travel process got interesting.  Our plane had to fly to Montreal from Toronto and all the passengers continuing on through the flight process had to take all their stuff, get off th eplane, walk around for an hour and re-enter the plane.

  As I was walking to Gate 50 at the airport in Montreal, I get stopped by a wanna be police oficer (aka rent a cop) on a segway, with a helmet and elbow pads on.  For some reason I get targeted and he B-lines it right for me and says in a authoritative voice "Can I see your boarding pass".  I dig through my bag and gather the pass and show it to the guy, but as he focuses on the pass with a dumbfounded look on his face, he asks me where I came from.

  I explain my situation, but he still is confused and says, go to the lady at the boarding gate and make sure that they change it from Montreal to Brussels.  As frustrated as I am at this point and tired, I agree, so I walk to the lady and she says, ignore that guy he does not know what he is talking about.  Hahaha, it must have been the segway that spurred this reaction.

  After re-boarding, I take my seat beside an old man that is crunched in the middle between a young girl and myself.  It is a very uncomfortable situation and for 7 hours in the air, this was going to suck!!  However, a magical thing happened, his friend, another older gentleman comes up and says "Hey, we got a seat in the back for you, these young people don't want some old fart sitting in the middle of them".

  I laugh because it was a very funny comment, and he looks at me and says "am I right or what?".  I shrug my shoulders and the old man exits, could this be possible, perhaps a flight overseas with know one in between us, as good as those snobby private cubical's in first class, or business class (as they call it to take away from creating a class system, but we all know what it really means).

  Then this older lady comes to our seat and gets in, I guess the in-flight attendant made her move, but the old man who was a friend remained back their, so we waited and just as we are getting ready to depart on the long journey, the attendant comes up and says we were able to find you a seat with your friends in the back after all, this is definetly a Hallelujah moment for me, as I have just been given the space that any solo individual travelling overseas hopes and dreams for.

  The flight was long, as I watch Jack and Jill with Adam Sandler (would never pay money for) and some other fairly entertaining stuff (well since I already forget, it was not that great).  However, a miraculous thing happens, the flight attendant this short guy with a goatee, comes to provide a beverage and offers me a Heineken, although I am not the biggest fan of Heineken, a free beer is a free beer and I could use one on this flight.

  Well after that one, he comes and starts dropping off beers at my seat, without being asked, it was amazing, finished one and another free beer awaited, then he started giving me pretzels, I would have to say in all my travelling this was the best flight attendant I have ever came into contact with.  After 6 Heineken's, I am ready for the final phase of the trip, landing in Brussels!!!

  I will get to that later.......

  Roy