As promised, we took a pre-dawn bus to Brussels to pick up nearly 100 students and their luggage. The buses were very nice, and seemed almost new. The boarders between countries were less noticeable than those between states in the US. Aside from a medium sized blue sign with the country’s name on it, you’d never know you had crossed a boarder.

This isn’t the sign we passed because, well, by the time I noticed it, we were well past it. And of course on the way to the airport, is was too dark to see much of anything.

Getting the students from inside the airport to aboard the buses was more involved than I had imagined. To begin with, we kept track of who got off the airplane, who got on the bus, and just to be sure, who was still on the bus when the doors closed. The MUDEC staff was in constant contact with their colleagues back at the Château, getting travel updates, and letting them know who had arrived so that appropriate host family could be notified that their student(s) would be in Differdange in 2.5 hours.

I didn’t get to see much of the Brussels’ airport, but I do remember being struck by the way the floors were numbered. The floor at grade was 0 (zero). As you might expect, the first subterranean floor was then -1. What you would not expect, and what I cannot explain, is why the first floor above 0 is 2. There is no first floor.

Because most of the students had quiet a bit of luggage (picture two very large checked bags and one large carry on plus a pillow), the buses each had trailers. When we arrived at the Château, the bus was of course too big to pull into the courtyard (we knew this already) and so it had to stay on the street, effectively blocking one of the two lanes. As we all scrambled to empty the bus and trailer as quickly as possible, not one driver honked or yelled at us.

At the Château, the students were matched with their host families. This was also impressive to see. The courtyard is not very big, and cannot accommodate many cars. The staff had orchestrated everything perfectly so that there was never a logjam.

I suspect it’s bad form to not have a photograph of the day’s activities, so let me shamelessly borrow of photo from the MUDEC Instagram account. That’s me on the right in the red (maroon?) shirt.

 

Let me leave you with a front page story from the Luxemburger Wort: “Man caught with his pants down.”  The gentleman in question had been observed urinating against the capital’s Grand Ducal palace at 3am on Sunday. When he saw the police, he fled. When they caught up with him he “denied any wrongdoing despite the fly of his trousers still being unzipped.” The story ends with this: “The man received a warning by police, who also filed a report of the misdemeanor.” I like this story for two reasons. First, how bad could things be in Luxembourg if that story is up front? Second, I think it says a lot about the country if someone urinating on what I imagine is one of its most important buildings is treated this way. I think the police did exactly the right thing. They didn’t ignore what he had done, but they didn’t make a federal case out of it either.

(sorry about the delay. I forgot to press “publish.”)