The Flight Saga

From Japan to Belgium!

Everything was perfect, abeit very long, for the 11 hour flight to Amsterdam, until we got to Amsterdam...10 minutes away we were told we couldn't land because of a snowstorm. They decided to fly us to Germany instead, Dusseldorf. We landed, and waited, only to hear we were just waiting there for the storm to blow over so we could fly back to Amsterdam. Dusseldorf wouldn't let us disembark. So we waited about 2 hours, before we were told we'd return to Amsterdam. Finally on our way again, we landed in Amsterdam to hear that all the gates were occupied. So we waited. And this started a series of shorter periods of waiting. Taxiing to the gate, waiting for the airplane there to leave, waiting for them to clean off the snowy ground in front of the gate, waiting for gate officers to come and hook up the gate, waiting for them to attach the gate, and then to open the frozen door...then we waited at immigration (but that was expected). And then we waited about 45 minutes at baggage claim, only to hear (by hearsay from people around - not an intercom announcement) that NO ONE was really getting their bags and they were handing out forms to fill out for baggage claim. Got that done! Looked for mom and then we had to wait for a train to Antwerp that no one could really tell us WHEN it would come or even IF it would come. BUT we finally made it to the Antwerp station at 12:30 (instead of 6ish)!! YEY! I'm in Belgium!!!