departure day

July 31, 2009 Departure day

I truly believe I have something wrong w/ my brain that prohibits me from learning any French. The funny part is I find myself knowing what I need to say in German and sometimes even Spanish! So, I did learn some German in HS and college and I must have picked up Spanish along the way. Anyhow, a ‘bonjour’ with a smile seems to go a long way. I will admit I didn’t put much effort into it…oh well.

I’m standing here at a recharge station practicing my typing. I could log in to the internet if Orange didn’t assign a stupid log in and pwd, I wrote it down once and then had firefox remember it, of course I have to access it from another page. Oh well, once I have this all typed I’ll pay to log on and upload so you have something to do today.

I got on the taxi at 8:15…flight leaves at 12:45, didn’t want to take a single chance at missing it! Crap, looked at the meter and it was already at 35 Euros and my terminal is nowhere to be seen (all I have is 40 Euros—thought it would be around 30 to get there)..thoughts start going thru my head, “don’t say anything until you are there.” “don’t panic you aren’t the fiarst idiot to do this.” “wonder if there is an ATM right inside the terminal” So, I didn’t panic, when we pulled up I explained my situation and the driver pulls out a credit card machine! Sweet!

Lug the bike and bag onto a cart, go inside, ‘Oh the lines!’ good thing I’m here 3.5 hours early! Find what I think is my line, move about 10 ft in 10 mins, finally find someone official who tells me I need to be at group 2, u-turn around, find group 2, yippee, short line! Weigh the bags, then I get to haul them to the oversize luggage drop off and go inside another room to pay 80 Euros to ship the bike back. Then thru security. I had to completely empty my camera bag—pull out each zoom, the gps, and of course the laptop. But I got to keep my shoes on! They were extremely nice in the security lines, not scary at all, I didn’t get that ‘you’re too slow feeling’ they even handed out ziplocks for the carry on liquids.

Found a bakery and spent more of my Euros on a macaroon, water & coke. I would so break the caffeine habit if I lived here…most places it is 3 Euros for a 50cl bottle—think that’s about $4.20. Maybe when I get back I need to put a $5.00 bill aside for each coke I drink..I’ll either save a lot of money or stop drinking them (the later would be the best!)

This is annoying can’t see anything about my flight…guess I’ll pay and upload …45 mins til I board, then Amsterdam, then Detroit (hopefully time for a chesseburger or a salad) before I fly into Austin!

Hope you enjoy today pics, I reverted back to my HS B&W fetish days!

It’s been quite an adventure...not sure what I’m going to do next or how I’m ever going to top this trip.


So, they are supposed to start boarding at 12:00, finally start at 12:47 for the flight that was to take off at 12:45, then I swear grandma was driving the plane when getting to the run way…going so slow, even stroke could have run faster than the plane! We taxi for about 20 mins…finally take off, finally land 2:28, taxi for another 15, my flight ‘leaves’ at 3, get off the plane and a lady is holding a sign saying go to T2, about 15 of us get to T2 to ‘transfer’ to the plane, sweet, maybe they are holding it...not so much! Get to T@ only to find out it left! Oh well.

I get re-booked on the 10:20 flight to Minneapolis tomorrow morning(too bad not enough time to se Barb, Lucy & Ellie, I'll wave as I fly over., they give me directions to get a hotel, find that, get the hotel and my ‘clean yourself up before you come back tomorrow bag’, now to go thru customs. I follow the signs saying you aren’t declaring anything, go thru the door and I’m outside by all the stores, no checks, no one to wave you thru, you just leave the baggage area like you were at ABIA. Darn it, no passport stamp. Decide to find the hotel shuttle bus area, find it and about the time I decide to go inside and get a t-shirt, the bus comes…guess I’ll sleep successfully tonight. Meet up w/ Tina from China who is a Piano grad student at Bowling Green in Ohio. We take each others pictures, then get to the hotel, end up eating a great dinner together.
Showered, used the stinky hotel soap, I hope the person sitting next to me tomorrow appreciates it!

Love the dry weave panties—2 mins under the hair dryer and whoa-la…clean underwear, of course I did wash them before drying (the smell good bag even had a tube of laundry detergent!) And the bag contained a XXL white t-shirt! Sweet!

Time for sleep, I really hope there's a good movie to sink my mind into on the way home!

When I booked this flight I thought to myself, you are going to get to spend the night in Amsterdam, only wish it wasn’t so far away! It’s like I’m at one of those road side hotels you see on the interstate in the middle of nowhere and wonder who stays there…now I know. Guess buying new jeans that fit will be put off until Sunday or Monday!

Cool pics are here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=84353&id=1038297795&l=85bfbcfbf5