It was the end of the quarter, so we had a Friday-Tuesday off. It had been a whole three weeks since I’d gotten back from Spain, thus of course I was long overdue for a trip somewhere. : ) So I was off to Belgium and Holland to visit an old friend from high school. My plane left bright and early Friday morning, so early in fact that there was no bus from the campus to town that early. So I had planned on spending the night in the airport, until my coworkers suggested a better idea. Why not spend the night in the office? There was a bus from the UN that went to the airport quite early, it was only 10 minutes away, and then I would be able to have music, the computer, lock myself in the office and not have to worry about weird people while trying to sleep. So that’s exactly what I did.
I settled in, figured I might as well get comfy and get in my pjs, put on my music, made a cup of tea, and I was good to go. In my defense, I did get quite a bit of work done. It was kind of weird wandering down the hall with all the lights out to brush my teeth, weird and cool being alone in the UN. I actually tried to sleep on the floor, but I think they must have shut the heat off at a certain time, because I started out with my pjs, and slowly I kept adding layers. By the end of the night, I had on my tights, my pjs, two pairs of socks, two sweaters, a scarf, and a vest. Yeah, not the best night of sleep I’ve had. In the morning, I went to the bathroom and washed my hair in the sink and off I went. The security guards looked at me a little funny as I wandered out at 5:00 AM with my wet hair as people were coming in to work, but they didn’t say anything.
The trip there was pretty uneventful, and I got in about 8:00 to have the day to myself since my friend that I was going to visit had to work on Friday. But, he had kindly created an amazing itinerary for me to find things to do in his absence, complete with maps, prices, museums, history, and more. Sadly, I unintentionally diverted from his agenda in probably less than 15 minutes. I had my ipod on and was unconcerned with getting lost and was just enjoying exploring the city and soaking up the sun that I would be heading somewhere on his map and then I would see something cool and head over to see that and then before I knew it I was off his map and had no idea where I was. Oh well.
I ended up seeing the big square with all the government buildings, which looks really cool at night, and then wandered around a bit more before meeting Dallin for lunch. It was the first time we had seen each other in around five years, but it was like no time had passed at all and was thankfully not awkward at all but really really good to see each other. Dallin kindly offered to take my backpack I had been hauling around to work with him (only if I promised not to put a bomb in it, since he works in the embassy), which made the afternoon slightly more enjoyable.
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