I left from Indianapolis on the 25th of June. My original plans were a flight to Brussels, Belgium with a layover in Philadelphia. I then had a separate ticket to leave Brussels that same day to fly to Billund, Denmark with a layover in Copenhagen. Simple, right? Not really... My agent suggested that since I only had an hour or so in Brussels to check my bags all the way to Billund. That could save alot of time with customs. So of course the computers at the ticket counter in Indy would not do that so the guy hand wrote the bag tags. And since there was 4 flights he had to staple two together on each bag and attach it with a string to the bag handle. Of course I just look at it and say, "Great!"

So I fly to Philly, no problem. Have to hurry to a different terminal to get to the gate in time to find out there is a mechanical problem, delayed 45 min. then another 45 min. and another... I was supposed to depart at 8:05pm and don't actually leave until close to 2:00am. So of course I will now miss my other flight in Brussels. Normally airlines won't do anything for you if the flight is a separate ticket, but since the problem was mechanical they bought me another ticket. So I was now flying direct from Brussels to Billund, only about 6 hours later than I was originally supposed to get in.

I was lucky enough to get an exit row seat on the overseas flight only to board the plane and see it was not exactly as I had hoped for. About half of my leg room (all of where my right leg should go) was blocked by the exit door. Go figure.. But it was late enough that I was tired and slept all but about 30 in of the 7 and a half hour flight.

I get to Brussels and find out that the ticket I was issued from US Airways was not valid so I had to take care of that before I could check back in for my next flight. As compensation for everthing up to this point, they let me in the VIP lounge of the airport. I immediately found that after checking in for the Billund flight. I relaxed there for a couple hours. They had lots of snacks, open self-serve bar, tv's, and internet. Quite nice!

Get on the flight to Billund on British Airways, quite possibly the best airline ever. It was only a 90 min flight and it seemed like I got a 4 course meal. First there was the traditional snack and drink followed by coffee and tea. Next came the turkey and beef meal. As I was eating that there came the basket of giant rolls. They followed that with ice cream and more coffee and tea. I think I was eating the entire flight.

Arrived in Billund, and to no surprise the luggage is not there. I had to wait until I found the guy that was picking up people for the meet to get the address of our hotel to give to the baggage claim desk. The guy that picked us up was a javelin thrower for the Danish national team. It was about a 90 min drive to Aarhus, where the meet is. I don't know how many miles it was but it only took us 90 min at about 175km/hr. I didn't even want to do the conversion on how fast we were driving...I will say that no other car passed us the whole way.

The hotel in Aarhus is great. I have my own room, free internet, and all the meals are covered. They even had some sandwiches waiting for us becaused we arrived about 11:30pm. The next day we went to the track, I met the meet director. One of my teammates, Kevin, is also here and ran at this meet last year. We did a shake out in our uniforms because our luggage was still lost. After that we went back up to the meet director's office and I asked to get into the 400m as well. I don't know if I'm in for sure but it sounded like there was a good chance. So I may get to double in the 800 and 400 at this meet. Top 3 places pay and the payouts are 600, 400, 200 Euros.

Here is the website for the meet: http://www.aarhusgames.dk/web467.asp?toppkt=108