Brussels Vienna The End (3) Departure Day

4 30 am I wake up and head down to say goodbye to the first people to leave. Jamal is the driver of the transfers and asks me where the luggage is. Of course nobody had told the night shit guy that he had to collect luggage at 4 15. My giving 4 copies of the departure sheet to the hotel staff did not help at all. There are also no breakfast boxes.

4 40 am. The bus leaves with delay but with the luggage. Mr Gilmore says in perfect Flemish: Dank u; u bent fantastisch. He and his wife had met old friends who live in Belgium. The people leave having gotten a breakfast box with one apple, one croissant and one soya milk can. That is it. BOOOO.

5 30 am Ricardo calls me he has found the camera and will bring it to the hotel.

6 00 am I get up to meet Ricardo. The Andderson are there already. I ask Ricardo if he can drop off at the station, which he wants to do. All well in the end for the anderssons

6 15 am Ricardo is back with the Andersons. They forgot their passport and tickets. We go upstairs, but don’t find anything in the room. We unload the luggage, open it and find the necessary documents. In the meantime Jamal is back with the transfer bus. Jamal and Ricardo do not get along and Jamal accuses Ricardo for taking a job from him. I have to intervene. The Andersons end up going with Ricardo to the train station.

6 30 am I said goodby to the next load of departures and head back to bed but can’t get to sleep at all. I feel too tired to pack but I am too awake to sleep so I go eat breakfast.

6 35 am Mr and Mrs Stelling are already eating breakfast. I join them. Mr Stelling ate something bad at the Brussels Grill and did not sleep at all. But I talk him out of going to the doctor before he goes on the flight. Hello! I really did not feel like going to the dr on the last day. He is cool. He is funny. I didn’t get his humor in the beginning and thought they were critisizing me, but he is fun. Invited me to his place in New York State. Other passengers come in and start talking

7 am I finally have some time to do some packing.

8 30 am I go down to say goodbye to the third bus departure but there is no luggage yet. Some people took it down themselves. I ask the front desk where Guiseppe is (the luggage guy). Incredible how slow the staff is in the hotel Guiseppe is nowhere to be found, so I go up and bring luggage down myself. After 6 suitcases I lash out at the front desk that this is not my task. I am VERY pissed. I need to calm myself or I start an avalanche of criticism to the hotel staff who is slow and unable to speak and understand dutch.

8 45 am Guiseppe brings down the last piece of luggage after I had brought down 12 already. He is a nice Guiseppe looking guy but still. I already forget about it. I ask Florence Arnold if she will be fine. I should go with her to the airport as she is the only one taking an SK flight and the others take BA or UA. But she says she will manage. However, when I ask her where she is flying to she has no idea where. I worry about her. She invited me to her 90^th birthday in May. In Seatlle. Hope she makes it. Very irresponsible of ther children to let her go on her own. Mr STelling promises me he will take her to the correct check in counter.

9 am Puffy needs ten euro. She doesn’t ask it; she says: give me ten euro, I need to buy an extra bag.

11 am The last people to depart sit together in the lounge. I get all the extra luggage they could not take. Two of them give a guide book on Belgium, one give me a bottle of wine which she had won after finding the longest german word (yes we do stuff like that with our passengers) and puffy gives me a Hoegaarden she bought during our supermarket visit two days before.

11 10 am I am dropped off at the train station and say goodbye and head to the train home. His trip is FINALLY over.