Trip to Belgium

It was sunny (but a bit chilly) in Minneapolis.

The 2013 season is officially underway for me, as I made my way to Belgium for planning meetings. It seems like I just left there, but it's really been more than a month (late October). Despite not being on the road for only a month, I was a bit out of sorts when it came to the normal travel routine: checking boarding passes, layover times, gates, etc.

My itinerary took me from Omaha to Minneapolis to JFK (New York) and finally to Brussels. We were on time leaving Omaha and the 47-minute flight went well. I arrived in Minneapolis to learn I had been upgraded to first class for the two-and-a-half hour flight to JFK, which was nice. That meant a meal on the plane. What was supposed to be an early arrival – after a late departure due to a computer problem – turned into a later landing due to fog. So my more than two-hour layover there was much less.

The flight from New York to Brussels was more than nine hours, six or so that I slept through. I watched "Adjustment Bureau" and had what I thought would be a nice 80s playlist of music going for my bedtime. That is until a few Bon Jovi songs I put in there woke me up. I rapidly switched over to "spa sounds" and was back to sleep. And in the recline category, my initial plan to put the seat all the way back (because no one was sitting behind me) was foiled when I discovered someone had taken the seat right before dinner. So it was a bit of a restless sleep. The other bad part of the trip was the intercom system, which kept cutting in and out. By the end of the flight, even the pilot sounded frustrated (at least from what I could discern).

I enjoyed first class seating on my 47-minute flight from Omaha to Minneapolis.

Flying over one of the Great Lakes on the way from Minneapolis to New York.

Here's my lunch. That's a chicken sandwich, which looked strangely dark.

Cadel Evans and the BMC Racing Team are in the Delta in-flight magazine this month.

It was foggy (and dark) upon arrival at New York's JFK.

The new 767s feature a headphone jack near the video screen, instead of the arm rest.