Travel

It is good to be home. We arrived back in Pittsburgh last night at almost 21:00. Our flight left a little late from Cincinnati due to some congestion there. One would think that, since the place is an international hub for Delta and they have a lot of connecting flights, maybe scheduling six flights that all leave from the same area of the terminal–five of which that use the same departing runway (36)–within ten minutes of each other would be a bad idea. Well, apparently that didn’t occur to anyone there, so we had to wait in line behind five other planes. Oh well. It really wasn’t a big deal–it just isn’t a lot of fun to be crammed into those tiny puddle-jumper seats while sitting on the tarmac waiting to get on the runway for any longer than is absolutely necessary.

We stopped at Fatheads on the way home for some ‘merkin food. Then we got home, got our suitcases lugged upstairs, and collapsed into bed.

Today is a work day for us. I bought some cheese and bread for lunches and breakfasts here over the weekend and into next week. By daylight, the yard is a mess–I think I’m going to end up spending all day tomorrow getting things back in shape. The grass needs to be mowed, flower beds weeded and trimmed, bushes trimmed, ornamentals pruned, etc. Our shelter in the back yard blew over in the storm while we were gone, too. We knew that wasn’t going to make it another year, so it isn’t all that tragic. We just have to clean up the disorderly array of cloth and metal that is lying in a heap in the back yard. heh.

jonathan

Well, today was our last day in Rotterdam. I’m getting a slight cold (of course). The work event went well today. I came back and relaxed with Jenny for a bit. She got a Subway sub for herself for lunch, and another one for me or for a snack later. I had some of that when I got back to the hotel, then I rested for a while as we listened to the financial markets continue to crash. Yay!

Later this evening, we went out to get a good dinner on our last night here. We found a neat little place near the hotel in a line of other bars and restaurants. I picked this one because it didn’t have a menu in English. Seriously, it looked good and not too crowded, and the prices looked good. I can pick up a few words of Dutch here and there now, so I could tell that they had some stuff that we’d eat. I ended up getting their chicken sate with peanut sauce with a side of traditional potatoes. Yum. Jenny got tortellini that was in what tasted like a basil cream sauce. We enjoyed some “coke light” with our meals, then headed back to the hotel to pack and get ready for our trip to the airport and then HOME tomorrow!

So you might find this talk of Subway sandwiches and the like odd, given that we are in a foreign country and all. As I was talking to a Dutchman at one of our events the other day, I asked what might be considered “traditional” Dutch food, as we had some difficulty finding things in Amsterdam that seemed unique. He explained that cheese and bread was a traditional breakfast, but that everything else was pretty diverse. The wide mix of cultures and nationalities here has led to a wide variety of dishes and styles becoming popular in Holland. Potatoes are traditional (and are available in many interesting and good preparations), and some original Dutch “fast food” are things like meat croquettes. Most places have some varieties of potatoes available, and they are always good. Jenny and I found a few places with croquettes in Amsterdam, but we didn’t see any here. Of course, we didn’t have time to look that hard.

Jenny got out to do some other exploring today. She walked to one of the harbors near the Maritime Museum on the Maas Road and took some pictures in that area. The camera battery went flat on her, though–I didn’t realize that it was that low yet. I had the chargers, but it didn’t make sense to charge it tonight just for the trip home, so the camera is packed and ready to come home. I’ll grab the pictures off of it when we get home.

I’m a little sad that I didn’t get more of a chance to explore Rotterdam. We knew that was going to be the case coming in, though–we elected to spend our available time exploring London this time. There are really so many places to see in the world–I’m sure we’ll get back here sometime.

We’re planning to catch an 8:00 train tomorrow morning to Schiphol Airport from Rotterdam Central Station. We have a back-up train at 8:28 in case we miss the 8:00. Our flight leaves at 12:10 (UTC+2), and arrives in Cincinnati at 15:15 (UTC-4). We then have a three-hour layover in beautiful Cincinnati, and eventually arrive back in Pittsburgh at almost 21:00. We’ll probably get some dinner from there and then crash when we get home. We both intend to work on Friday. Going that way is easy, time-wise–we just need to force ourselves to be awake longer than usual, then sleep when we finally get home. By the next morning, we’ll be pretty much back on track again.

Next time we write will probably be back in the ‘states.

jonathan

We made it to Rotterdam. As I mentioned in the last entry, we were able to get a train to Brussels as planned. fortunately, we already had our tickets–they told a few people ahead of us who didn’t have tickets that they weren’t selling them anymore, so they were pretty much out of luck for the day.

The ride through the English and French countryside was fun. The Chunnel itself was pretty uneventful–there’s not much to see in a tunnel. Customs on the London side were easy–the French border patrol pretty much stamped our passports and sent us on our way. Here in Europe, we didn’t have to pass through any other customs agents, so I suppose we’re all finished until we leave. Our train left at 13:25 from the beautiful London St. Pancras International terminal, and we arrived at somewhere near 16:30 in Brussels. We ended up getting through to an information desk to check on the next train to Rotterdam in time to find out that one was leaving at 17:15, which was about ten minutes away from the current time. We ran up to the platform and jumped on the train about two minutes before the doors closed. That ride lasted a while, too. It stopped in a few major places along the way from Brussels to Rotterdam, on its way for a final destination of Amsterdam. After getting lost trying to leave Rotterdam Central Station (the area outside is under major construction right now), a friendly person on the street helped us to get moving in the right direction, and we got to our hotel at around 20:00. I think our train deposited us in Rotterdam at around 19:00 or thereabouts.

We got checked-in and up to the room to collect ourselves a bit before heading out to dinner. We found a good Thai place which, unfortunately, had everything in the ultra-spicy variety. I like that, but it made it tough for Jenny to eat her shrimpy goodness. The dinner was good, though. We then explored Rotterdam some more looking for a “night market” (that’s what they call convenience stores open at night here–I seem to remember that from the last trip, too). Rotterdam seems to have most places close-up pretty early, so we had to search for a while to find this night market. We eventually did, got some good stuff (including “Cool American” flavor Doritos–I’ll let you guess what we might call them), and got back to the hotel at around 23:15.

There are more stories there, but I’m tired, so I’m headed to bed. I need to try to get Thunderbird working on my machine here so that I can read my work email, and then I’m going to call it a night. I have to be at the conference center tomorrow at around 8AM to register and get my sessions picked. It’s 02:00 here now, so I need to clean-up and sleep!

jonathan

We’re getting ready to depart for the train station. Our train time isn’t until 14:53 or something like that. We’re going to try to get to the station and see what train they can get us. Because of the fire in the tunnel before the weekend, they are still running reduced services. Our train time isn’t listed on their reduced timetable, so we’ll either get a much earlier train, or a much later train. Fortunately, our tickets from Brussels to Rotterdam is an open ticket, so we should be OK there, as long as we don’t arrive later than the regional trains operate. I think that there are regional trains running into Rotterdam until after midnight, so hopefully we’ll be OK even there. It should be an adventure, in any case.

jonathan