We are here! Finally! We have made it to Europe. The trip was not too bad at all actually. We had a very long layover in DC and I did my best to sleep on the 7.5 hour flight from DC to Brussels. Hubby and I felt as though we were on the Amazing Race upon arriving. My intended mother had her retrieval around the time we would be arriving so it was up to us to navigate in this new uncharted (at least by us) country. We had to get a train in order to be within walking distance to our hotel. Before doing that, we had to use our debit card to change dollars to euros. It was very neat to get something besides American money out of the ATM. The train alone was a new experience for us. We enjoyed the peaceful rocking motion of the train and observed the scenery. Once we arrived at the train station we attempted to find our way to the hotel. We had been given a map so we did our best to use that and I must say we did pretty well. We fended off a few shady characters in the train station but other than that, things went smoothly.
Once at the hotel we crashed. Hubby and I were exhausted. We slept until about 2 or 3 pm. The 6 hour time difference had really caught up with us. We are still trying to get our bearings regarding the time here vs. the time at home. Our bodies are still on home time but we are operating on Belgium time. After waking from our nap we decided to venture out and get a phone so that we could call home. American cell phones operate on a different frequency so our communication with loved ones was hampered for a while. I was very nervous about that so we made it our mission to take care of that source of stress. Thankfully, finding a phone was pretty simple and inexpensive. We were able to call my babies and all was well. I was a happy mama!
We met up with my intended mother and father and they took us on quite the tour around the area. We had a snack and hubby had Belgium beer (he loved it) and then we walked the streets. The buildings we saw were just unbelievable. I will post pictures when we get back to the states. Finally around 8:30pm or so, we sat down at a beautiful sidewalk restaurant Chez Leon(probably spelled wrong) and had famous Mussels for dinner. Frank even ate some! He even had fish as his main course and LIKED it! I am so very proud of him ;-) Evidently, it is not uncommon to eat very late in Belgium. It didn't even get really dark until about 10pm.
IPs are super nice. I was a bit nervous of how things would go because we had not been able to communicate all that much up until that point. However, the moment we met, I knew they were great people and that this would be a great experience. My IM reported to me they retrieved 10 eggs! I can't wait to help them become parents once more. They informed us that they had bought tickets on the fast train for us to go to Paris. Tears filled my eyes because that to me was just an unbelievable and immensely thoughtful gesture that truly means so much to us! As the days transpire, I will post more. Love you all! xoxo
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