I said I had a big post for my blogging return, so here ya go! (I did not write anything down while on this trip so I am going strictly by memory, and that could be a real challenge in Prague and especially Amsterdam!)

I went with a friend who had never been to Europe before. It was going to be a big, busy trip so that meant somewhat of a challenge. To keep it interesting I will post this trip by the day like I always have.

Travel always has the potential for “challenges”, and they can be big or small. We had most everything reserved and paid for after many months of detailed planning – something I am not usually big on as I have posted before. However, I was willing to give it a try for a change and to see how it was. Besides, it was something to really consider; only thing we would need to pay for after we got there was food, booze, Amsterdam (😁), and other incidentals along the way that I will mention in the next several posts. This could be really nice, but it comes at a price – not much freedom to “wing it”.

Let’s get to the airport!

I got a good price on tickets out of Boston to go over. All that was left is to get to and from Boston from Kansas City. That ended up being much more expensive than I thought it would be, and we had to go to Chicago to get to Boston.

This was my first trip out of the new Kansas City airport. It is really nice and very easy to get around in. Too bad there are no direct flights to Europe out of here. I signed up for Global Entry (more on that later) and TSA PreCheck comes with that. Kansas City never had that before so that was a welcome change into this century. Needless to say we sped through security since we both had PreCheck. We got to our gate and waited to board.

Luckily, O’Hare was not a cluster for us and we made our gate in just a few minutes. We only had about 45 minutes for our layover and it went quickly. Off to Boston!

Logan International is a Big. Damn. Airport. We had about a 6 hour layover and we spent a good amount of time walking about what seemed to be a mile or so to get to our gate in the international terminal. We still had a lot of time to kill, though.

I had the solution instead of just watching the clock. While making travel reservations I signed up for a couple of travel credit cards. One has a big yearly fee but comes with many really good perks that basically can offset the fee. One such perk was Priority Pass, which gives you (and a guest) lounge access for free. Normally it is $50-75 each person to use the lounges unless you have other ways to access them so we took advantage of the pass. A great perk to have!

In the lounges you will find internet access just for the lounge, snacks, beverages, and other things. Some have hot food, adult beverages, and even showers. Mainly, though, it is a quiet place out of the airport noise and traffic for a few hours.

We spent about 3 hours in the lounge, drinking wine & coffee, eating pasta, snacks and salads. We had been up for 12 hours and had quite a ways to go still. It was so nice to get away from the crowds for a bit.

It was finally time to head out and get to our gate. We were flying over on SAS, which is Scandinavian Airlines. Of course, it’s a trip to Europe so yeah…I am t excited! We got on the plane and got settled in for the trip.

But, this plane is not a wide-body jet and it’s my first trip on one of these internationally. Imagine flying on a long 737 for 8 hours. Yeah…you know what I mean. You cannot just get up and walk around once an hour on a narrow-body like you can on a wide-body jet. We’ll see how this goes…

We got off the ground just before 6:00 PM and headed northeast.

As always, I could not sleep on the plane and an edible did not help. Doesn’t matter how tired I am…I am just so excited I cannot do it. It was a smooth flight though. I was in the middle seat (yeah…I know…). I don’t know if many of you are aware but the headrests on the planes raise up if you need it taller, plus the “wings” on the sides fold in to keep your skull from flopping about. I definitely used that feature.

The food on the plane was pretty good. It was actually quite a decent meal and was very filling. The crew on SAS was very good and everyone was very nice. One of the crew was even dressed as a chef and was handling meal preparation.

After a l-o-n-g flight we were getting ready to land at our first destination – Copenhagen, Denmark! It was my first trip to Denmark, but this was just a plane change. Unfortunately we only had an hour layover and did not have time to leave the airport. On the way over we lost a day with the time changes so it is now February 21st.

We got to our next gate and boarded to head south to our next stop.

We arrived at Brussels, Belgium, got through passport checks and set foot on the Continent to get this adventure started. We caught a train to Bruxelles Nord station, where we got our backpacks on and set out for a walk over to The Grand Place.

I had been here before so I did not take pictures (if you want to see some pics go check out my previous posts in Jan/Feb 2018). It is a very cool place to see and has been a public gathering spot since the 1600s. It was nice weather and so good to get out in the sunshine and walk around.

We made our way back to the train station for our next adventure. (Unfortunately we did not have enough time in Brussels to see a couple of other things we planned to see but our plans had to change. Our flight from Boston was originally going to Oslo, Norway but that leg was cancelled, getting us to Brussels a few hours earlier. Since we got in earlier we changed our train reservation to an earlier train for more daylight in our next stop.).

“Where next?” you may be asking. It’s first class seats on the Eurostar for a 120 mph train ride to Cologne, Germany!

We had a hotel here for the night so it was finally time to slow down a bit. First stop was the cathedral. Awe-inspiring no matter how many times you see it. Again, I did not take many pictures this trip since it was my 3rd visit and I have posted pictures in 2018. We did get to some places in the city that I had not seen. We went for my partner’s first döner kebab (delicious) and then went for a beer – the hometown brew called “Kölsch”. Not my favorite beer (you can see through it) but it was okay. I actually had a couple of different brands of it and each was a little different, but I still prefer a pint of Guinness.

The bridge crossing the Rhine by the train station has tens of thousands of padlocks on it – “locks of love” put on by couples. There are so many that every so often they have to be removed because of the extra weight on the bridge.

A very long day drew to a close and it’s time to collapse into bed. It is so very good to be back in Europe.

See you tomorrow!

Shawn