Hmm, I feel like there is a not a lot to recap about the day we flew back to the states, but I say that now, then will probably write a zillion words. Here we go.

We flew back on Monday April 22nd. Our flight left Brussels at 10:15 am, so we thankfully didn’t have a terribly early wakeup call. We got to the hotel lobby to wait for our driver and I tried to ask the front desk about a large charge on my credit card and got nowhere with them and had to assume the charge would go away (it did, but ugh, anxiety). We rode to the airport and got there much faster than on our way in!

BRUSSELS AIRPORT

Our driver dropped us off in a special drop-off area that required a walk to the airport (fine with me, before I sit for 8 hours!), and we began our journey of getting through all the securities to get to our gate. There was SIX levels of security. We

1. Had a United agent ask us a few questions about our trip while we waited in line to drop off our bags. She put stickers on the back of our passports.
2. Scanned our tickets at a kiosk to get to security.
3. Had our tickets scanned immediately after by a person.
4. Went through security (ha, they found some random small metal rod Steven had completely forgot was in his briefcase from work).
5. Went through passport control.
6. Went through United security (this is when they looked at the stickers) to get access to our gate.
7. Wait, did they check them again when we got on the plane?

Phew. It was very thorough.

We had a lot of time and searched for breakfast after passport control. I was kind of cranky and sick of having fig bars and sweets for breakfast. (I had a fig bar and later found a vegan croissant and got a chai. So much sugar!)

We were in boarding group 3, and they called 2 then went right to 4, so it was a bit of a cluster, but we had assigned seats, so it’s not like it matters!

FLIGHT HOME

I knew I was supposed to sleep so I could stay up when I got home, and I tried to for a minute, but couldn’t.

So I paid for an hour of internet ($8 vs $20 for the whole flight) with the intent to post to Instagram then try to sleep again, but when my hour was up I still had internet, and did for the whole flight, so I posted all my travel recaps on Instagram. I bet people were so happy to wake up and see NINE posts, each with ten photos, from me. Ha ha ha.

I was served vegan meals again, yay! Both curry themed. I only got up to use the bathroom once which is kind of a big no no with my clotting disease, but I had the window and didn’t want to move (and tried to stretch in my seat).

We landed in Chicago early, before noon, and actually got a gate! (Reminder, our flight left after 10:00 am Brussels time, so our bodies felt like it was the evening.)

GOING HOME

Going through passport control on the USA side took some time because there were so many people on our flight. I think I’ll get global entry for our next international trip. Our agent was really nice, and we grabbed our bags right away and got on the shuttle to our car. We drove home and were home between 1:30 and 2:00.

DO ALL THE THINGS

I am the “unpack and start laundry when I get home” type, so that is what I did. AFTER SNUGGLING ALL THE CATS OF COURSE! Our wonderful cat sitter Jessie took care of them while we were gone (coming twice a day). They adore Jessie (and so do we)! And they seemed happy we were home.

I put the artwork from our friends’ kids and our new magnets up

We put new pins in our travel map

I went and got groceries and Steven stayed home. I called him to make sure he hadn’t fallen asleep! I was really hoping we’d make it to 8:00!

Steven cooked dinner (pasta! broccoli! fake meats!) much earlier than normal, and we watched part of Top Gun: Maverick for work movie club, and then called it shortly after 7:00, and yep, were asleep by 8:00! I didn’t feel exhausted, but fell easily asleep (then slept like crap for about a week, ugh).

I had taken the next day off (he went to work) and felt good all day, but even more exhausted that night than the long travel day, which was odd!

I bet you thought I was done with blogging about our trip. Not so fast! This is the end of this post, but I have a notebook with four pages of random thoughts from our trip. So… more to come!