Happy New Years!

Happy New Years! As JonPaul will tell you, our New Years Eve plans have rarely worked out or been exciting. We have had several great New Years with our friends in Knoxville, but other than that, our New Years are relatively uneventful. Well, this New Years we decided to take one more trip before we go back to the states. As nerve-wracking the 4-week August trip was to plan through all the Covid restrictions and uncertainties, this short 10-day trip was even more difficult! We had originally planned to go to Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris. However, two days after we booked our airfare to Amsterdam and from Paris, Amsterdam went into complete lockdown. Everything is closed, including museums and restaurants. Therefore, there would be nothing to do there! Although I could rebook the tickets, EasyJet doesn’t fly to Brussels and I couldn’t figure out how to make a better plan. So we still flew into Amsterdam. I was really worried about Covid tests, Covid cards, and everything, but so far, so good.

We decided to try and travel really light this time. Everyone has a backpack and we have one carry-on luggage. Everyone has their clothes (three outfits—two packed and one worn), stuffed animal, water bottle, and toys in their backpacks, and we have the electronics, toiletries, chargers, and extra stuff in the carry-on. The kids backpacks were actually not too heavy!

To get to the Budapest airport we had to take the tram to the bus stop and then take a bus to the airport. We weren’t sure how long we would have to be at the airport so we left in plenty of time. We didn’t have to go through the check-in desk so went straight to the security check. There was no one checking IDs or Covid cards or anything; all was had to do was scan our ticket and go through security. We didn’t even have to take off our shoes or take electronics/toiletries out of the suitcases. We were off the bus and through security in probably less than 10 minutes. I think it is the fastest we have ever been through the airport lines, so we had over two hours to wait!

By now everyone was a little hungry so we got some food at the food court. We have learned that letting the kids bring a few small toys that can fit in their pockets is essential. They play with them everywhere, and are almost always able to entertain themselves. Willow’s favorites are these little unicorn/horses, and Ronin’s are of course GI Joes.

We flew east into the sunset, and it was a beautiful orange and yellow sky. The window was really scratched and fogged, so the pictures didn’t really come out, but it really was pretty.

Our plane was a little late coming in, so we were in a hurry. Because we couldn’t fly into Brussels we took a train from Amsterdam into Brussels. Although that made our day a long one of traveling, it was really the only thing I could think of to make the trip work. We just barely made it to the short train to get from the airport to the train station, then just barely made the train to Brussels. We had a few minutes so we stopped and got some pizzas ($45 for ten slices!!!) and JonPaul stayed to get the pizzas while I got seats on the train. Well, JonPaul is not the best at finding his way and got turned around. I was standing in the doorway of the train while he ran as fast as he could. The buzzer for the final door went off and JonPaul jumped on right before the doors closed. It was really close!

We always like traveling by train. There is more room to move than on a plane and the kids have a table to put their tablet on or to draw or play. We are all going to miss train travel when we have to go back to driving everywhere! There were no checks on our way into Belgium, and we made it to our hotel without issue. The hotel was right next to the Brussels Midi train station, which made it easy to get in late at night.

I looked for New Years things in Brussels, but it was difficult to find specifics online. So we stayed in the hotel room but let the kids stay up until midnight. They loved getting to say Happy New Year and we could see the reflection of some fireworks in the building across the way. We also saw four police cars, an ambulance, and a fire truck right outside our window. The fire truck lifted up its bucket with a board on top of it. They took it to the building right next door on the third floor (we are on the fourth floor) and removed a woman out of the window strapped onto the board. Then they brought her down on the board with the lift and put her on a stretcher and into the ambulance. The kids were fascinated and loved seeing the fire truck lift go up and down. I hope the lady ends up being okay.

Happy New Year from Belgium!