My mom, one of my brothers and my sister dropped me off at the airport. They helped me check into my flight and made sure I had my passport and my tickets at the ready before going through customs. After all the goodbyes, I went through customs and got patted down by a security lady. I am happy to say I was able to keep going and wave to my family one last time before heading to the gate.
After waiting for a little while, my flight was ready to board. There were about ten of us flying to Montreal in this little plane that could maybe fit 20 people, max. After arriving in Montreal, I had to determine which gate was mine and follow the arrows to my connecting flight, which was a lot easier than I originally thought it would be. We experienced a bit of turbulence on the flight to Brussels. Every time the seatbelt sign went on, all you could hear was the clicking of everyone putting on their seatbelts. There were no complications with the flight and we even landed ten minutes early.
After finding my luggage, I found my “buddy”. The university I’m attending has a buddy program that gives you the email of a fellow student for you to connect with. She picked me up from the airport and then dropped me off at the apartment I’m sharing with a fellow BIBer.
My apartment is not very big. It has two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen/living room. The great thing about it is that it’s only a three-minute walk to the university, so it will be hard (even for me) to get lost. I arrived at 8:30 a.m. local time, but to my internal clock it felt like 2:30 a.m. Canadian time. I didn’t want to feel jetlagged, so I forced myself to stay up till about 7:00 p.m. and then slept like a baby.
After this very busy day I have come to the conclusion that flying is not for everyone, especially if you get motion sickness, like I did. I’ve also settled on some goals I’d like to accomplish during my time abroad:
1. Become fluent in French before I leave. 2. Try new things as often as I can. 3. Integrate with the local culture and make new friends. 4. Be okay on my own and not living with my parents for the first time. 5. Not let motion sickness stop me from experiencing Europe.