Saturday April 25, 1998
Woke up feeling a bit better – naturally. It was the first morning all week where I could breathe when I woke up. Today I am off to travel back to the US with Wesley and I have mixed feelings. On one hand, parts of this trip were so miserable due to my illness, I can’t wait to get home. On the other hand, this is Europe, and I am on vacation and it beats working. I managed to make it downstairs for breakfast. It was OK, but the Dutch need to learn a few things about scrambled egg preparation. I decided to head out to the Van Gogh museum. It was one of the only sites I really wanted to see in Amsterdam, and since I hadn’t seen anything else, I went for it. Wesley decided to come as well, so we set off in the light rain. The museum turned out only to be a few blocks away. My overall impression of the museum was very positive, despite the lack of big name paintings. The only one I saw that I remembered from High School was “The Potato Eaters”. The presentation and layout of the museum was very good as well. I picked up a poster and some postcards for me and Kris.
From there, we hailed a cab to the Dam Square so Wesley could do some shopping. We then had a long miserable walk back to the hotel in the rain. I had some pretty miserable thoughts in my head as we headed back – probably a combination of fatigue, sickness, rain, and the fact I spent my hard earned vacation sick. The result of the inner conversation was that if we indeed go back to Europe, we need to do less cities, and I like it if some of my friends came along as well – so if I decide to go out for an evening I can have someone to talk to instead of just staring at the wall.
Upon returning to the hotel (with my Van Gogh box almost disintegrating due to the rain) we kicked back for awhile and then checked out. We then took Mr. Dutchboy’s Wild Ride to the airport. We had this taxi driver who did no less than 40MPH the whole way. We did manage to make it in one piece, and checked in for our British Air flight to London. No souviners were to be found, and I lost 2.5 guilders in the vending machine. I then called Kris and found out that he’d been at the airport last night – D’oh! I hope it wasn’t my fault, but I called Roger and he managed to get everything straightened out.
The flight from AMS to LHR was pretty good. No complaints – though I did notice that a good chunk of the passengers seemed to be part of the same Japanese tour group. When we arrived in London, we bid farewell to Mom and Gary – they were staying a few extra days in London. As Wesley and I proceeded through the various security checkpoints, the Japanese group from the plane was using the snowplow method to stick together and easily get through security. Wesley and I decided to go along for the ride and managed to get through some long lines quickly.
When it came time to re-check in we went around the group and managed to save even more time. Our trip home on American was surprising. I actually had a pleasant flight!! Good Will Hunting was the movie, and I had a good book to pass the time and Wesley next to me for conversation. Our flight attendant Polly was superb and made sure we were in good spirits. Some guy about 6 rows ahead of us had an accident which stunk up a chunk of the aircraft. Suprisingly, Mr. Platinum across from us (so named because he tried to throw his weight around and get a better seat, and threw a hissy fit when he didn’t get his way) stayed calm, only managing a grumble when the sun began to shine in his face and a few other odd moments of attention deprivation.
Managed to make it through customs without a hitch, and finally saw Kris. I was happy to see him, but sad to say goodbye to Wesley. We had a great time on the flight, but he was off to a downtown hotel and I was off to Kris’ SPARKLE house. We headed down to the subway, and despite some bag trauma at the gate, managed to get on the ‘L’. On the way to his house, Kris filled me in on the news that he had been unable to finish his presentation for work, and he would have to get up early the next day and head back to work and then travel to Detroit. I was bummed, but understood that work sometimes calls. I was determined not to let it spoil the time I did have with him. We stayed up into the wee hours chating about everything. I decided to reschedule my flight back to SF to an earlier flight.
