The Outward Journey

Friday 01:30 Huygens Building (Nijmegen)

The last moment at our base, the Huygens Building. We should meet at 01:45 in front of our faculty and fortunately, everyone was there. Even the president of the U.S.A. traveled over the Atlantic ocean to tell us about the great country we are going to visit (I actually think it wasn't Donald, but the president of Marie Curie, Jeffrey van der Gucht, but I am not entirely sure..). The also were a few people to wave us goodbye. At 02:10 we could finally get into the warm bus to drive to Schiphol Airport.

Friday 03:30 Schiphol Airport (Amsterdam)

At Schiphol we meet the last three participants for the trip (Sten, Mees and Olivier). As seen in the picture above, William went from very excited to very tired in just 2 hours. Actually, he wasn't just tired, he was a little ill. At 05:50 we could finally make our way through the customs. The extensive search was a little intimate for some people, but also this could be overseen. Just 40 more minutes until leaving to Zurich!

Friday 08:40 Zürich Airport (Zurich)

Almost 5 hours of free time, we agreed to meet at 12:30 to board on the plane to America. So everyone split up to go and walk through the airport. Many expensive shops like Gucci and Burberry, but also expensive whiskeys are fun to search. One of the most expensive ones was 4500 Swiss francs (which is about 4500 euros)! Now follows a very short interview with Bram Bekker:

Have you been able to sleep a little?

Before we met at the Huygens Building I slept for 30 minutes. In the bus I didn't anymore. The hour we just flew from Amsterdam to Zurich I fully spent sleaping.

Aren't you very tired now?

I am, actually, I am kneiter tired (kneiter tired is a synonym for: "please just leave me alone tired"). I think I will start hallucinating really soon.

Janet also wants me to mention that she spot Marcel Kittel, a German cyclist she had a crush on in secondary school. I got to admit, if I didn't have a girlfriend, I knew what to do.

Friday 13:30 Plane from Zurich - Los Angeles

Many of us haven't eaten anything this morning, so we were very hungry when going on the plane. After about 15 minutes a little cart with drinks already came by to satisfy our thirst. We also got a little bag of salty crisps, but we were still pretty hungry. Not long after we got lunch, we would pick chicken or vegan Thai curry. Everyone around seemed to like it very much! I picked the Thai curry, there was a little pepper on top, so I decided to cut it in smaller pieces and put it in the curry. It tasted great but the pepper was really really spicy. After cutting it up and eating my meal I thought it was a good idea to rub in my eyes for a while.... Now.... I regret this decision very much.

Everyone is enjoying him or herself with the touchscreens attached to the seat in front of you. The most recent movies were on there and you could also play Battleships with someone else in the plane!

Saturday 01:50 L.A. Airport (Los Angeles), 16:50 local time
We finally arrived at our destination L.A. after travelling for 12 hours. Here the first setback occurred. The suitcase of Giel Berden (our scientific supervisor) went on holiday to Mauritius, a small island near Madagascar. He got $100 for this mistake, but we are still waiting for the return of the suitcase, to be continued...

Saturday 09:30 Best Western Markland Hotel (Los Angeles), 00:30 local time

From the airport we took a shuttle to the car rental station. Here there was a lot of trouble at renting the cars, but in he end we got the 3 beasts. While the drivers and committee members were arranging this, the others went to Denny's to eat the first burger of the trip. At this point everyone was already collapsing and everyone wanted to go to the hotel. We arrived here at about 09:00 dutch time, 00:00 local time. As seen in the picture above, Tom collapsed literally while I was typing this blog.

by: Ludo van Alst