2003 Dressage at Devon

Pre-Devon Diary

Tuesday September 16, 2003: The Arrival

It's never good to watch the movie "Alive" prior to boarding an airplane for an 8-hour flight. 2003 Dressage at Devon has been a steady check mark on my calendar and the time had come to step on a plane to Philadelphia. My hosts, foster parents, employers, business associates and dearest friends -- Mary Phelps and JJ Hathaway -- kindly invited me to travel to Florida one week earlier so that we could all "sit together and work on the web site as a team." Used to corresponding by bits and bytes instead of meeting each other live, Mary, JJ and I depend on MSN, ICQ and email to streamline our web sites horsesdaily.com, dressagedaily.com and eurodressage.com, which have run in a strong alliance since 1998.

My trip the U.S.A started Tuesday morning September 16, 2003, by getting up at 5 A.M. Always nervous to leave my nest in Mol, Belgium, I didn't go to bed till 1 AM the night before and when I woke up at 5 AM I had the feeling that I actually hadn't slept at all. My forgiving facchio toto dad drove me to Brussels south station, facing murderous traffic in Brussels, where rush hour starts at an incredible 6.30 AM. My dad and I maneuvered through the difficult Brussels tunnel system on our way to Bruxelles Midi, where I had to take the High Speed Train (TGV) Thalys to Paris Charles de Gaule airport. The Thalys is pure luxury. At 300 km/h it flies to destinations such as the capital of France, Eurodisney, the airport or even the South of France. In an hour time, I was at Charles de Gaule ready to board my very first Air France flight.

The plane was half full and, as usual, I was surrounded by the least interesting people possible. Behind me sat a couple with a 2-year old child. The authoritative Harley Davidson dad mastered only one form of communication with his son, namely yelling. Throughout the flight I was submitted to the mother's constant humming of Sesame Street music, which had to soothe the child, but which annoyed me immensely.

On my left, at the other side of the isle, a typical old women was complaining about everything, yet in the end thanking everyone for such a great flight, politely adding that she would "never ever fly Air France again." Her string of complaints worked fatiguing on my mind. Firstly, her requested wheel chair had not arrived at the gate for her gate connection from Prague to Philadelphia (OK, I can understand this), but secondly she ordered a stewardess a glass of water for her medication, but it never came. Gracious as I sometimes am, I went to the back of the plane getting a cup of water for her. She thanked me sincerely, but then when her neighbor wanted to go to the toilet, she didn't move an inch to make the other person more comfortable passing her. The result was that the neighbor had to jump over her, knocking over the cup of water and spilling the huge amount of two drops of water on her pants. The old lady lamented about this great tragedy, as if she had just been shop-lifted. When Mrs gray left the plane she was shaking hands with the flight attendant thanking him for the relaxing flight and for his lovely service on the aircraft.

The new Airbus airplanes give you plenty of economy-class-space to put your legs and has a small tv installed in the head piece of the seat in front of you. Installed with games and movies, you can spend your flight entirely by being sucked up by this entertainment cube. When I tried playing solitaire, my favorite computer game besides Tetris, the program blocked and my entire flight I had to stare to a jammed "Solitaire" sign. I was struck by the coincidence of this; I was once again on my way as solo/solitary/sole person to the U.S. for labor and fun.

Arriving in Philadelphia I had a two-hour lay over, so I checked out the traditional sightings at the Philly airport: Gap Star, Afaze, the sock shop, a decent book store and the Philadelphia Museum of Art gift shop. U.S. Airways carried me to Florida and with only 30 people on board, the flight was fantastic. The cowboy pilot greeted his passengers with "howdy folks, we will be momentarily taking off. If you sit on the left side of the plane, you will be lucky to see hurricane Isabelle when we fly over North and South Carolina." Cowboy as his accent may have sounded, this pilot put in a great example of flying. Wonderful ascent, quiet descent and no turbulence in the air; this is the sort of flight which doesn't make me feel like a chicken about to lay an egg. It almost seemed that this plane was steered by intuition. Although I don't like sitting next to the window, this time I moved over to watch Atlantic City (remember Snake Eyes) and Baltimore (Poe City) glide by underneath me.

Arriving in Orlando, Florida, Mary was waiting for me while eating a strawberry yogurt ice cream and JJ was having fun in the Disney Store. Although hurricane rain storms greeted me outside the airport, I was finally able to enjoy hot weather again. In Belgium the mornings were already freezing cold, but here in Florida the heat feels great on my skin and I was instantly cheerful. We had a short dinner stop at J.C.'s Fish Restaurant in Deland, FL, for some American style Coquilles St Jacques (sauteed in cheese), and then drove to Deleon Springs -- Mary and JJ's home -- where I was confronted with The King of Cute: Trooper. The red haired Trooper is Mary and JJ's newest corgi puppy replacing their good old 12-year old Winnie who passed away last week from severe kidney failure.

It was getting late and after 19 hours of intensive traveling I craved for a bed. I was of to la-la land by 11 PM local time.

-- Astrid Appels