blunder

So today was my first field trip that I organized for my school. And after the events of today, I doubt the director will ever let me organize another one. Here's the scoop:

My 8th grade science class and I (along with another middle school teacher) got up at an ungodly hour and left school at 7am. Destination - the Euro Space Center in Belgium (linked with 'blunder'). I checked ahead of time and found our approximate time of travel to be a bit over two hours - no problem. Leaving at 7 and not starting until 9:30, that gave us some time to play with. Little did I realize that the margin of time that I was expecting to be extra was gone in short order and the 2 hour ride turned into 4 hours. The construction around Antwerp is enough to drive anyone crazy and it did for S. and I who were driving these 14 lovely kids to the Space Center.

So after the ordeal of construction and then missing my exit (blocked by all the trucks who were at a stand still in traffic), we continued on to our location - "just south of Brussels" as the website says. Bull shinto! Try like an hour south of Brussels! Its in the middle of the Ardennes forest for crying out loud!

So we arrived at 11:30 to start our abbreviated tour of the facility. The kids got to ride on the motion simulators which they enjoyed immensely. The moon gravity chair was fun but the really enjoyed the multi-axis chair (rotates in all 3 directions while they have to trace a picture on a paper in front of them). Even S. and I enjoyed the rides, fun for even adults. But with time in short order, we buggered outta there at 2:30 to make our trek back to R'dam.

We saw traffic being a horrible mess on the way down and thought that it would be equally as horrid on the way back, possibly even worse with rush hour in full effect. We were wrong and my initial estimates were correct. We made it back in a hair over 2 hours. Go figure.

S. is a bit irritated with me for really screwing up her day, my director will undoubtably have some words for me tonight at the school board meeting, and I am sure that the entire staff knows of my blunder and will graciously tease me about it for the rest of my time here in Holland.

Anyone got a spare hole for me to crawl into right now?