Tuesday 19 September
By Maddy Terrell
From left to right: Alia Papageorgiou, Griff Blewett, Robert Monterosso, Maddison Briggs, Kari Seeley, Jane Drake-Brockman, Sofia Valero, Maddy Terrell, Leighton McDonald-Stuart & Ben Pascoe-Purvis
Eight law, arts and economics students, who barely know each other, with two weeks’ notice are heading to Europe. What started off as nervous giggles and awkward conversations at the airport quickly turned to excitement, aided by a few pre-flight glasses of champagne, thanks to Jane Drake-Brockman. As we said goodbye to our families and went through Customs & Immigration, we looked at one another and thought, “Is this really happening?”
We boarded the plane and the excitement only grew! Although we knew we had a long journey ahead with, a 13-hour flight to Dubai, a three hour stop over, and a further seven hours to Brussels, we had plenty of pre-readings to complete (thanks for that, Jane!). On top of the readings, the flights included lots of sleeping, a bit of sickness, a lost phone and some sneaky poker playing. Once we finally landed in Brussels we were extremely grateful for Alia. Without her we would’ve had no clue how to get to our hotel from the airport but thanks to her expertise we finally made it after a train ride, a metro ride and a bit of a walk.
A blurry photo of the bleary-eyed travellers … nearly there!
After some recovery time in bed, in our still somewhat delirious state, we wandered the beautiful streets of Brussels, found a cute restaurant to have our first group dinner and then returned to the Jam Hotel, our home away from home for a few days, and settled in for an early night. Overall our first day on our European adventure included plenty of laughs and much required bonding time.
Our gorgeous neighbourhood in Bruxelles!
To say that we are all looking forward to the rest of the trip is an understatement.
