Traveling again, but this to Brussels

Well, I’m sitting on a plane and it’s freezing. I’m covered in as many blankets as I can find, and wondering why the plane doesn’t seem to have any temperature control. At least in the cabin I’m sitting in, there seem to be only two temperatures – darn cold (my guess is about 15 degrees, or beyond balmy (perhaps 30 degrees). One requires a jacket, and the other makes me regret wearing a long sleeve shirt. It stays one particular way, until someone complains, then it flips the other way. Strange.

I didn’t even know about this trip two weeks ago, but here I am, heading to Brussels, Belgium. A small adventure for Chuck. I am going to attend a NATO working group meeting on software-defined radios, which are a bit of a specialty of mine. Previously this was a government-only working group trying to determine what NATO should be doing in this area. They are now to the point or needing to involve industry, since we are the ones who actually not only make software-defined radios, but as a result also understand the technology the best. As a result, I am one of a group of four US delegates to this meeting.

I am comfortable in the overall subject area that I am going to cover, but far from comfortable with the political arena of the NATO working group. When I look at past attendance lists, I recognize very few people (OK, a couple from France). So this meeting I am going to lay low, listen, take notes, and try not to talk too much.

As I am writing this, I have awoken from my “nap” during the “night” on the plane. They fed me a bagel for breakfast (Delta airlines is NOT Air France, that is for sure!), and just turned off the cabin lights. We are flying into the sun, and I can see that we are over land – England, I would guess. The local Belgium time (according to my watch) is 7:49 am, but the sun is still far from rising. I can see an even glow on the horizon, and since we are flying more than one time zone per hour, I expect that I will be able to see a complete transition from darkness to sunrise in “faster than real time”. In fact, as I have written this paragraph, I can start to see what I think are clouds taking form, rather than just patchy lights from the land far below.

I don’t feel very tired at the moment, which is a bit strange, since it is just before 2 am local time – about the time I went to bed on Friday night two days ago. I will arrive in Brussels at 9 am Monday morning, and plan to take Monday to wander the streets with a camera and stop in all the pastry shops I can find J.

I now see a sea of clouds below. At 7:56, the world is. Grey blue clouds against a darker blue sky, with shades of orange and yellow on the horizon. I am on the “north” side of the airplane – when I look through the cabin out the windows on the other side, things look considerably brighter in the southeast.

Six hours, six time zones. I will now be offset 2 hours from St. Pete time, and 6 from home. It reminds me of traveling the other way, when a non-stop flight from Moscow to JFK can arrive before it departs.

Strange world, this.

February is going to be one busy month – crazier than any I can remember in the past with a combination of business travel and vacation. This week (we will call it week 1), I am in Europe. I get back near midnight on Thursday. The next week I spend at work. Then Nina’s winter break begins that Friday (end of “week two”). On week three, we plan to travel to San Diego for a week vacation. Week 3. We return the following Monday. Gwendolyn and Nina return home, and I remain in San Diego for several more days to attend a meeting there, returning on Thursday – week 4. When I get back it will be March. And sometime in early March I need to go visit my Mom Busy, busy.

The sea of clouds is a light lavender now. It is day, although the sun has yet to rise. We are now over the English Channel – a long way to swim indeed. Next we pass just north of Lille, France, and soon to our destination.

The last time I was in Europe it was to Russia – the time before, Paris. And Russia before that. And Russia this summer. Perhaps not as much variety as possible, but wonderful visits. Every trip is different. Our life is very rich indeed!