The longest day of my life

It lasted for 82 hours, 4 countries, around 9,000 km (~ 6.000 miles) and a lot of stress.

It started in Miami where I was once again hanging out at the White House in South Beach.
Mr White had left for work and I was just waiting to go to the bus to the airport. So when I booked the flight I was in a different time zone than in Miami that’s why my calendar said the flight was at 5 pm but actually it was at 4 pm which I, luckily, realized on time but then hat to stress a bit but I made it. (yeah) Dropped off my luggage on time, got to the gate on time, took ages to go through security check, where the bloke almost broke my credit card, and finally sat my ass in my seat.
Next to me a hot Italian girl. Oh, this was on February 14th, so I thought maybe my Valentine’s Day won’t be that bad after all.
The speaker cracks and a woman with a Dutch accent says: “We’re missing a person and until we haven’t found him, we can’t take off.”
Yep. This investigation took about one and a half hours. I mean I was in no hurry, not like the Italo-chick next to me. She was also coming from Mexico but had yet to catch another flight to Barcelona in Brussels (our destination) and only had a gap of two hours. Hahahaha. Cazzo!

She wasn’t really talkative but I wasn’t either, so no worries. My plan was to sleep pretty much all of the flight so then I would wake up in Belgium at 8 am local time, start the day and already get back into the routine. I thought I could avoid the jet lag like this. Yeah nah, didn’t work out.
I even bought some sleeping pills which apparently didn’t work until I left the airplane. Thanks Obama and your failed health care system.
Anyhow, the movies on the plane were as great as Dutch entertainment can get and as it was a Belgian airline you could either watch the movies in French or English with Dutch subtitles so I ended up listening to music while being half asleep for 10 hours. Every now and then you got served some incredibly delicious meals but they didn’t improve the situation as a whole.

So I landed in Brussels Zaventem. The place where a couple of months ago a terror attack went down … or should I say up? You can’t see anything about it anymore which is probably a good thing.
As I’m a good guy I had bought some presents for my family and some friends and carried them around for the last month or so and now it was time to send them home. European Union helps you out. Or at least that is what I thought.
At the airport I asked where a DHL office was and luckily there was one right across the airport. Oh boy, this was so great. I walked over there in that freezing cold as here in Europe it is fucking winter not like that want to be cool summer thing in Mexico and rang the bell.
The security bloke told me that this was not an office and sent me somewhere else where the sheila at the desk also told me that wasn’t an office and sent me somewhere else which wasn’t DHL directly but a weird subsidiary of it which only operates in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Like … I had to take deep breath at that moment.

I decided to fuck it and just rent a car, drive over to Germany – as it is only two hours from Brussels – and send it from there.
Super easy. Sign here. Pay here. Done. No wonder we are the backbone of the union. But seriously, next time, y’all not getting shit. A hug or hive. That got to be enough for y’all greedy wankers.
Anyhow, because the rental car was quite expensive, I had to compensate the money spent and decided to spend the night in the car. On the way back to Brussels I realized that I was quite sleepy, remember the sleeping pills? And as those infamous second sleeps while driving are really dangerous so I drove to one rest place and took a nap for about two hours.
I kept on going and stopped in a restaurant with really good free WiFi. I researched a bit, also my onward trip, and yada yada, don’t want to bore you with the details. I continued driving a couple of hours later when it already got dark and started to look for a place where I could spend the night.
Next rest area I drove out of the interstate looked good. Only one little light, only one more car and far away enough from the street so it’s not too loud.
The other car still had its light on and the engine running but I didn’t really mind and just brushed my teeth. Out of sudden this other guy came on and parked right next to the first car but not within the lines but in a 90 degrees angle to the other car. He got out. A really shady looking bloke. If I hadn’t gone to toilet in the restaurant I would’ve shat my pants in this very moment.
He watched me carefully brushing my teeth as if he were about to say: “I watched Game of Thrones and didn’t flinch when Eddie Stark was decapitated.” A real twisted fuck that motherfucker. Oh, spoiler alert.
I finished brushing my teeth as soon as quickly and drove off again to the next rest place where I was alone and put my head to rest.

Maybe three hours later I woke up again. What I didn’t consider is that cars are not really well insulated against coldness. Who would’ve known? So I kept on going to a place where I could sit down, have a coke and a small snack. I wrote a bit in my journal about the girl I’m in love with but that’s a story for another time.
I kept on going. Suddenly I was in back in Brussels. It was maybe 3 am and I had the rental for another 7 hours. I knew the next day would be rough as well so I had to get some sleep somewhere. Couldn’t, so I drove to the Atomium. You probably have heard of it as it is pretty much the only famous thing in Brussels apart from the sprouts.
Turned out when you go there at 4 am there is nobody there and you can take awesome pictures unless you have a shitty camera like I do and can’t see shit.
Somewhere on the way from the Atomium to the airport I managed to get another couple of hours of sleep.

It was only 11 am and it would take almost another 24 hours until my flight to Bucharest would take off.
My initial plan was to look around the city and then sleep at the airport as my flight was quite early.
So, Brussels has a really good system to keep the airflow down at their airport. Send them to another airport. Good for you. So I booked a bus to Charleroi which is about one hour away from Brussels, no biggie. And the shuttle service they provide is quite nice as you can take any bus you want on the day you purchased your ticket till 4 am of the next day.
My flight was at 7 am so I would’ve taken a late bus and sleep at the airport.

I started going into the city and for some reason the fucking sleeping pill went on full mode right now. I shit you not, I couldn’t even human at all. I was like a zombie standing in the train. People were staring at me. It felt quite weird.
I looked up a hostel and hoped I could take a shower (which was really necessary) and a nap or just relax for a bit.
I found a good one (aka the cheapest one) but they told me my room is not ready until 3 pm. I was even too tired to get furious. So I just said “No worries”, sneaked into the common area, sat on a chair and slept. For three hours. Went into my room. I was alone which was great.
Actually the hostel was really nice I wish I could’ve spent more time there but yeah life works in mysterious ways.
I took a shower, shaved with MY electrical razor again for the first time in 8 months and slept again. I think in this bed I had the longest “sleep” on this whole trip. At least in one go. From around 4 pm until 8 pm. Yes not really a long time but it felt good.

Now, a little bit more fluent in my brain I checked my flight itinerary just to find out my flight is at 9 am and not at 7 am. Great.
As my bus ticket was only valid for that day I couldn’t sleep in the hostel over night and leave early the next morning. Well done, Thomas, well done.
So I checked out. Oh gosh, you should’ve seen the receptionist’s face when I told her that I was leaving.
“Is anything wrong with the room?”
– No, it’s fine.
“Do you want to have another room?”
– No, the room is good. I just need to go.
Obviously she didn’t understand what was going on but I didn’t care. In my condition I had no emotions and sympathy whatsoever.
So I walked to the Zuid Staation because I saw a supermarket there and I needed water and the shuttle to Charleroi left from there as well. How convenient. I came right on time as the supermarket close about 10 mins later.
The cashier bloke told me anything in French, which of course I didn’t understand, to which I just said “Oui, d’accord.”. Works every time. I paid him and left.

On the bus to Charleroi I slept again for one hour. And there I was in a tiny airport. Actually it wasn’t too bad. I found a very good place to sleep with a socket nearby, in a more or less hidden spot so people left me alone and the best thing about this airport is, that you get free unlimited WiFi. How the table’s turned.
Unfortunately my body decided not to be tired at all so I spent the whole night awake watching random videos on YouTube and talking to my new best sheila Amirah. Here a little thank you for cheering me up. Backies and fronties, you know what I’m talking about.

I realized when I’m sleep deprived, just like with a small hangover, I’m hilarious as hell. Also creepy as hell as I was just standing there at the airport laughing. Alone. Laughing. I had fun.
And that’s the moment when this masterpiece came into existence.

After my breakfast I met Sam and Laura, from Lithuania who shot a little stop motion movie on the airport and offered me a small role. Laura is a model/movie director (is that true? I don’t know) and Sam is an artist/insurance salesman (ok, that’s definitely not true. Who cares?)
I told you guys that one day, little Tommy here will be featured on the big screen. She said I was really talented and a good singer *clap-clap-clap* (showbiz slang)

Anyhow, we were chilling out for a bit until my flight took off. We were talking so much that when I went to the gate I saw my flight left about 30 min earlier than planned. How is that even possible??
Boy, was I stressed to run through security screening and to get to the gate just to find out it wasn’t even my flight. Hahaha. Get some rest, Tommy.
My flight left on time and here a little shout out to RyanAir:
Thank you RyanAir, your seats are so small it feels so cozy in there. Like a hug from every side. You really figured it out how to meet your seat neighbors. Putting them on your leap is a very efficient way in doing so.
Thank you.

And guess what, I slept the whole flight. This time without sleeping pills.
Two hours later the sheila with the oversized but in the stewardess dress woke me up just because she didn’t see my belt. Like if that thing would save my life in a crash. Anyhow, thanks to Amirah I had a window seat so I could see Romania from above and I thought “Boy, Romania is in a desert.”
Lol, it’s not. It was just snow. Actually the first snow I encountered on this trip. And yes, the snow here is as cold as back home.

Ok, real quick, went through passport control, got my luggage, took the bus into city center without ticket because there was no kiosk that sold me them (#badass), wandered around the streets looking for my hostel and thinking “they’d be fucking with me”, eventually found it, checked in, went back to bed, got up to get food and now I’m sitting here on the hostel’s computer not knowing if this is real the real life or just fantasy. But Bernie, the blue-winged chameleon, says it’s real.

I have to say, it has been rough 82 hours (not sure if that’s calculated right but it’s very confusing with three different time zones) in which I had a total amount of sleep of 19 hours. More or less.
So this, guys, is what I was preparing the whole time for. Remember when you said I’m lazy and I said, nah I’m in energy saving mode. This is when I’m on “on”-mode.

But now, seriously, I need to sleep. Good night everybody.

This better be true