There was no way I would miss this attraction!
So many things about chocolate I didn’t know before!
The Chocolate Museum in Brussels
Category: travel
Fast Forward
On Monday, I was in London, working for the whole day, not leaving the office. Then on Tuesday morning, I flew to Helsinki, and then I found out about the strike and about our flight cancellation and our new flight. Now we are in Brussels, and we have a great time here, but I find it very difficult to detach from work entirely. It was fine for most of the day today, but then we rerutrend to the hotel, and there were some conference-related things, and then something not-really-ork-but-sort-of. So…
That’s our second time in Brussels, and we like it again. Brussels has been good to us 🙂
Other Travel Matters
That was the first time I booked Economy Premium. I fly business class occasionally when it is company-paid, or when I get an upgrade, but the latter one mostly happen when I travel within Europe. This time I knew I would have to work immediately upon arrival, so I needed some decent sleeping conditions, but I was not ready to purchase business class on my own.
Economy Premium is indeed right between Economy and Business class. In Economy, you sleep almost vertical, in Business, you sleep horizontally, and in Economy Premium, you sleep diagonally. My initial feeling was that it’s still not comfortable enough, but I ended up working for the whole day with no problem, so I guess it was not that bad. The seats are definitely more comfortable, however, the foot rest prevents from placing your backpack under the seat in front of you, so I had to put everything into the overhead.
The food is still bad. Since last year’s sharp decline in the quality of the in-flight food, the only decent meals are in business class. When I fly economy and it’s BA or AA, I try to eat in the lonuge and then sleep through the in-flight dinner. If I fly Finnair, it’s not an option, because the Finnair lounge in ORD is really bad and has virtually no amenities. This time, it was BA, but since the departure was at 5 PM, I had to leave the lounge by 4 PM, sort of too early for dinner. Besides, I was hoping that the food in Economy Premium will be better.
It was not, and also, they asked everyone to lift up their seat during the dinner service, so I won’t be able to sleep anyway. The only thing which was better than in the Economy was that there was a choice of meals, but by the time they got to my row they were out of chicken, and I didn’t like much the other two choices. We’ll see how things will turn out on my flight back!
One shocking thing on this flight was that there was a young woman on the left of me who spoke on the phone all the the time since she sat down, and through al of the safety instructions, and takeoff, until she lost connection and some point. Over an hour total!
While I was typing this post, I got a notification that our flight to Brussels was rebooked for a day earlier. I guess that’s the Universe’s response to my over-scheduled life!
Forgetting Things
The number of things I hav forgotten recently tells me that I am trying to do too many things. And that’s to what Boris reminded me about recently, and what I resolved to address.
The most recent things:
- I signed up my mom for her COVID shot for the wrong location, and I had to find a new place right there on the spot.
- I forgot the departure time of my flight to London, and only realized it the night before (and thanks goodness, I realized it not right before departure, but the night before, because it was 1.5 hours earlier than I thought!
- And the last thing which prompted me to write this post: today, I forgot my iPad at the security checkpoint (yes, I had two laptops, an iPad, an iPhone and Apple watch, but still!
One more time, the FindMy app saved me: I spend some time wondering around in the duty free zone, then I went to the lounge, and when I got my breakfast and set down, I noticed the notification, that I left iPad behind. At first, I thought that it was one of those “I moved away from my bag,” but them I looked closer and saw the notification time was just ten minutes earlier, so I realized what had happened.
It was not so easy to find the way back to the security, and when I got there, I asked the personnel for assistance. Thankfully, they found my iPad and when I demonstrated that I could unlock it, they happily gave it back to me.
But it not for FindMy, I won’t realize that I do not have my iPad until I would be inside the aircraft!
Also, just learned that our flight to Brussels is cancelled due to the strike – we were hoping for th better, but unfortunately, that’s the case, and we still didn’t hear from Finnair what they can offer instead.
Vlad’s Travels
Vlad was in Japan for a work trip, and we hardly heard from him. A couple of times, somebody would pass a link, or he would post on Instagram a clip from news coverage, a photo of the newspaper page, or an article link – all in Japanese! I sent some links to my friend in Japan (Anna asked suspiciously whether my friend actually speaks Japanese😂). I was unsure whether my friend would be interested, but I sent the link anyway. She reacted enthusiastically but without much detail. When I sent her one more Instagram post, and she reacted enthusiastically again, I finally asked her whether she could tell me what it was all about. She was happy to fill me in and said she sort of forgot I could not understand it!😀
Here is this post, and Vlad is on the fifth and on the last photo:
Pictures From Prague December 14
Another night of walking around the city (and no, I didn’t miss December 13, I just never left the hotel on that day!)
:)
Prague Christmas Market
My co-presenter just sent me the pictures she took in Prague the day before the conference started. We prepared our presentation without meeting each other in person, so we wanted to spend some time getting to know each other. Her husband accompanied her at the conference as well, so the four of us went to dinner and then walked to the Charles Bridge and to the Christmas Market. And yes, she is that much taller than me!
Pictures From Prague December 12
In view of today’s tragedy in Prague, I was unsure whether I wanted to keep posting happy pictures of the city, but decided to go ahead.
December 12 was the only day when we had a chance to see the city in daylight. We met my friends who moved to Prague from Moscow and since the weather was perfect, decided to spend all the time we had wondering around.
Pictures From Prague: December 11
Prague at Christmas time is amazing, and even though we barely had any time to spare, we went to the old town several times, mostly in the dark, but that was even more stunning!
In the first post with Prague pictures, I show the ones that I took on Monday, December 11, the day we had just arrived. Almost immediately after arrival, we went to dinner with my co-presenter and her husband. After dinner, we walked from Hrad down to the Vltava River and crossed the Charles Bridge. Now, I continue from there – most of the pictures are from the Christmas market.
Hettie's Reflections 