Day 2 was not just a walk in the park.

Before anything else, I need to say that although this is a very nice hotel, its wifi in the room is really lousy. It pops in and out and goes from slow to fast to nonexistent in a matter of minutes. It's fine in the lobby, but not here.

Today I got up a bit early and took a walk around St. Stephen's Green, a park across the street from the hotel. I don't believe Stephen himself had anything to do with the green, in spite of the possessive. I think I'd heard that the Guinness family donated the park to the city and it's a very nice place.

There's a pond somewhere not in the picture that would be pretty with less garbage floating in it, but it doesn't seem to bother the ducks. Which reminds me, they don't have Duck Tours here- they have Viking Tours, with the same kind of vehicle and you have to wear Viking helmets while you ride, and no, I'm not kidding. They all yell something out as they pass the hotel.

Anyway, the park is very nice first thing in the morning. I'm sure it's nice most of the time, but it was very pleasant and quiet when I was there. There are lots of statues and lot of little nooks. Here are my favorite statues.

 

I like the first one, of Robert Emmet, because all it says about itself is that it was donated by the Robert Emmet Statue Committee and then names the committee members. The right one is a Henry Moore and it's of Yeats, or at least that's what it says.

So after than nice little walk, I came back and had my first Full Irish Breakfast. That's a thing, though it means slightly different foods depending on where you are. Mine had eggs, Irish bacon (kind of like thin Canadian bacon, but in strips), sausage, broiled tomato, sauteed mushrooms, potatoes, and black and white pudding, which are kind of like little discs of something grainy- one white, one dark, both tasty. That was a lot of food and I didn't really come close to finishing, but I gave it a good try.

Our first stop this morning was Trinity College, home of the Old Library and the Book of Kells. The Book is much older than the Library, though nobody knows exactly how old. Over 1000 years ago. It's an illuminated manuscript of the four gospels, considered to be among the finest of its sort, and it's very famous and people line up to get a peek.

The problem with this, of course, is that it's a book. It's small and old and in a case so you can't turn the pages. So there's a very nice exhibit before you get to the book itself where you learn about Irish scribes and how books like these were made. Interesting. Then you go into the room with the book, which is a single rectangular case with a crowd around it. People tend to be a bit pushy here, and I mean that literally. There's no hesitation to encroach on your personal space and try to squeeze by. I think that may be a tourist thing more than an Irish thing, but I do know that last night at the pub I was standing getting napkins and one person tried to squeeze by me in front and one tried to simultaneously squeeze by me behind and they were both annoyed that I didn't get out of their ways.

So my rule is if you are standing in a crowd around something in a museum, if at all possible stand behind children or teenagers. Those people have the attention span of a flea, so while a 45 year-old might linger for a few minutes, the kids will be out of there in 30 seconds tops. The book is very cool. I like illuminated manuscripts, and this is a good one.

From there, we went into a long room called, sorry, the Long Room. 

Pretty long, isn't it? It's an old library of textbooks, according to the guide. He was describing all the bay and shelf labels, which are necessary to locate any book because the books are sorted by size, not by topic. Also, the lower level, built in 1712, is almost 200 years older than the upper level. He said that the students are allowed to request a book and they can have it from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM and read it in the little nook all the way in the back on the second level. We also asked hm about whether the room is climate controlled, to which he replied by pointing to an open window. He said that they do check regularly.

From there, we went to the National Museum because they had a Vermeer. It was incredibly beautiful, as they all are. What a treat to find one here. By this time it was only early afternoon and I had more adventure in store, but that's enough for now, I'll fill in the rest of the day later.

First dayish

Our flight could not have been less eventful. We got into Dublin at around 8:45, and then did the usual, get bags, get local cash, get a cab, off to the hotel.

The cab driver gave the first hint that this is a different kind of country. Not that people in Amsterdam have what you'd think of as attitude, but they're kind of cool. No sense of cool here. Everyone is just right out there. I mentioned to the cabbie that I was a bit nervous about driving on the left side of the road, and for the entire rest of the trip he was explaining to me how I should handle particular situations. He also pointed out pubs and shopping areas (for the missus- actually he mentioned this even before we got out of the airport). The then mentioned that he had a crick in his neck and that it could be cured by a good grab and twist (he didn't say this, more kind of demonstrated) and that the wife was looking forward to doing so.

We got to our hotel, which couldn't be more convenient and centrally located, and amazingly, our room was actually already available. So up we went, down a surprisingly long hallway, to our very pleasant room. After a nice 3 hour nap, I went out for a walk around to see what's the deal around here.

There's a nice coffee bar just next door, and lots stuff all over- shops and pubs and official buildings and pubs and fancy restaurants and pubs. And pubs. A whole lot of people had to be concerned that they and their friends were not going to be able to get something to drink when the mood struck them, so they clearly made sure that this couldn't possibly happen. I needed to get a plug adapter, because I forgot, Euro or not, Ireland is not totally part of Europe. It's still (somewhat unwillingly) part of the UK and uses those weird UK plugs. So that was my big purchase.

Once Ronnie was up we made what can only be called a pilgrimage to the Guinness Storehouse, probably the best brewery tour where you never get inside the brewery. The brewery is right next door, because Arthur Guinness was stupid and/or clever enough to lease a huge decrepit downtown factory on 100 acres (or hectares, I forget which) for $1 per year for a term of (now hold your jealousy New Yorkers) 999 years. So the beer thing worked out pretty well and they use a different part of the complex for actual storage, so the old storehouse is now a self-guided tour and celebration of that stuff that is Guinness Stout.

It was actually quite a lot of fun- I'd recommend it. They illustrate all the processes and then teach you how to taste it, and then they have several bars where you get to see how a pint should be poured and get to enjoy it. I was really impressed with how they handled a massive number of people without the thing feeling crowded. Only the bar we chose was crowded. But I'd recommend it highly.

We then, and only because the taxi driver suggested it, went shopping. It was pretty pleasant, considering it was showery, as it was on and off all day really. The famed shopping street, Grafton Street, was pretty mall-like, but the department store, Brown Thomas, was very nice. Ronnie bought some pretty jewelry by an up-and-coming Irish designer. Then back to the hotel to rest up a bit and then to dinner.

Even though our systems were used to a completely different time zone, we got ourselves out to dinner, which was mediocre but certainly filling, and then we stayed for a round of Irish music. The music part was fine; it's impressive how a guy with a guitar and another with an accordion can fill a room, but they had dancers with them who performed every other song and they were really fun, especially to be standing right on top of them. You could feel the percussion as their feet hit the floor and it was a good time. The Guinness was pretty good too.

At this point, we were beginning to get tired and headed back to the hotel. For a trip with no expectations, it was off to a very promising start.

Off we go

We're off to Ireland for two weeks. We've been talking about it and kind of planning for a while now, but we're going in with no particular goals or expectations except for a few things we want to do and see.

For what I've heard, Ireland is a good place to have that kind of vacation. Everyone raves about how nice the people are and the beauty of the scenery, and it sounds almost like you can't make a bad choice unless you stay in your hotel room all day. Or turn the wrong way into a roundabout, (Clockwise. Clockwise!). I've actually watched a video on how to do it (it doesn't look that hard).

We're not used to traveling this way, but it seems like a fun thing to do and the timing worked out nice to go to the Galway Races, which are supposed to be great, on Ronnie's birthday.

So we'll keep our eyes and ears open, listen to some music, maybe even join in sometimes, and explore for its own sake. Sounds like a pretty good trip to me

Why I look tired sometimes.

Today I drove down to the Brandywine River Valley to go see an osteopath. I have periodic trouble with my back that requires a spinal adjustment, and this guy is able to fix it in about 15 minutes and it lasts for about a year or so.

That all went as well as having to drive 45 minutes with a backache can go. Then I saw this truck.

And then it happened. Who would think that the back of a truck would set off such a chain of thought? First of all, I always thought the leader in door opening solutions was the arm. And really, who even knew this was a thing? There are leaders and, by implication, followers in door opening solutions? And not just on a national basis. It's on a global basis. Global. All over the world, people are opening doors and these people are leading them in how to solve the problem of opening doors.

I wonder what they consider to be the greatest threat to their dominance in door opening solutions. I suppose there could be an global uprising against doors; that would be bad. I wonder if they are good at all of the different kinds of door opening solutions. Or are they best at the ones that open towards you or the ones that open away from you or the ones that slide into little pockets or revolving doors. I wonder if they have a research team whose goal is to keep them on top of door opening solutions. Maybe the next big thing in door opening is for the door to disappear into the floor, or maybe thinking further down the road, the door simply dematerializes and rematerializes once you've gone through it. And are there main rivals the second leading purveyor of door opening solutions or the leading purveyor of door closing solutions?

Now, some of this may strike you as interesting or funny or good way to pass the time on a 45 minute car ride, but my brain does this all the time whether I want it to or not. And yes, it's sometimes funny, it's sometimes interesting, but it's exhausting. I think that's part of why I enjoy my job, why I might enjoy any job is because it limits the scope of things that I can be thinking about it any particular time. I free associate constantly during class, but that's class. When I'm preparing, I'm outlining, organizing and trying to figure out what will make for a successful lesson. I'm not free associating then, and I'm certainly not thinking about who's going to be the leader in door closing solutions next year.

Vineyard weekend. The long bumpy empty part.

We’re off for a weekend in Martha’s Vineyard. Taking a different route this time. Instead of flying, which was over $900 round trip, we drove up to Quonset, Rhode Island, where we were taking a ferry, known (to themselves anyway) as the Fast Ferry. The ferry was scheduled for 1PM, and as usual, I was stressed out the day before about the prospect of getting through New York at around 9AM. But we left at 7 and hoped for the best.

Almost shockingly, things worked out great for the drive. We hit a bit of traffic here and there, but made it in a shade under 5 hours, which was pretty remarkable. I’ve gotta say, driving up I-95 from the Jersey Turnpike all the way up to Rhode Island is not anybody’s idea of a good time. The George Washington Bridge is an impressive and reasonably nice-looking bridge (would probably be beautiful if it weren’t choked with cars), and it is by far the visual highlight of the whole 250 miles or so.

The whole trip was aided by using EZ-Pass, of course, which has eliminated the need to stop at toll booths. It also yields my favorite useless road signs- in the Express lanes, where people routinely pass through at 60 miles per hour, do you really need signs that says “DO NOT BACK UP”? I think the laws of physics prevent that.

So we got to the ferry terminal, if you can call it that, though it was disappointingly not a quonset hut, about an hour before departure. That’s a long time to wait, and it reminds me of the frequent traveler’s dictum, if you never miss a plane, you’re getting to the airport too early. IOW, if you get to the airport so early that you’re always sitting around for an hour or more, you’re wasting time. Clearly there is an optimal arrival time, if you weigh the relative unpleasantness of sitting at the airport versus missing a plane. But it’s tough to predict how long a 250 mile drive around rush hour passing through New York is going to take. I was okay to wait.

Eventually, the ferry came in. It’s a nice-looking boat, a big catamaran. People started to line up, so we joined in early so as to get the best possible seat, whatever that meant. The boat was pretty nice inside, but as soon as we started moving we started to hit some big swells, making it feel a bit roller coasterish. It didn’t bother me particularly, but a number of people started getting seasick, running to the bar to get barf bags and/or running outside. I didn’t actually see anyone throw up, but many folks were looking with like they just had or were about to.

Fortunately, the ride smoothed out after a while and we cruised over to Oak Bluffs, where the crew instructed us all about where to stand and how to line up and get our bags as we debarked. As one would expect, this elicited chaos, with half the passengers scrambling to get their bags before docking so that they would not have to go in the order that they were assigned. We were among the first to board, so we were among the first to debark too, so we needed no such scramble.

Then a taxi van (all the taxis on the island are passenger vans) to the house, which was open and waiting for us. After a bit of settling in, we went out shopping and bought more groceries than I have ever bought at one time. And then we kind of settled into the house. I say kind of because this is not a house for 2 people. This house was designed specifically to handle a large bunch of people, which is what always buzzed around here during what you might call my parents’ glory day. This was from the mid-80’s to late 90’s, when lots of business associates were also social friends and would tend to gather here, along with our families, culminating with a summer-end weekend party for anywhere from 50 to 180 people (not all staying in the house itself).

That ended when my mom started showing ALS symptoms, and it was a kind of slow decline from there. But I don’t want to dwell on that (right now, anyway, plenty of time for that stuff). The point is that the house felt incredibly empty. I don’t think Ronnie and I had never been there before without some other family members present. It was kind of eerie. The pictures I’m including look like things you’d take of an empty house you were showing for sale, but it was as occupied as it was right then. In retrospect maybe I should have taken one with Ronnie in it for scale, but I think you get the idea.

That ended on Saturday afternoon, which is another story.

It's the end of the school (as we know it)

8:53 AM
The atmosphere in this place is very weird. Everyone is terrified, or maybe on edge is more accurate. There are a bunch of buff guys in the parking lot wearing red polos and khakis. We're going to have an "active shooter" drill some time between 9 and noon, where someone or maybe multiple people come into the school and pretend to shoot the place up. I've heard these are very noisy and they set off smoke bombs and stuff.

I've done what I usually do on this particular inservice day, which is to go to a nearby classroom and sort papers (my stack is about 3 feet tall this year) and write report cards. When the drill starts, I lock the door and wait it out. I guess that's it. We'll have to see.

These things are not really for us. If it were, we'd have students here and the students have been banned from campus. Part of a drill for us would be to protect students. This is a police drill, pure and simple. Long term, of course, it is good for school safety that the police learn how to navigate this place in case of an emergency. Short term though, all it's done is make people anxious. Even I'm a bit anxious, and literally all I have to do is pull a door shut and sit on the floor until the "all clear" announcement.

9:03
They keep hitting the page button on the intercom, which I assume is making everyone more jumpy than they already are.

9:10
It's very very very quiet in here.

9:27
I was thinking as I drove over here today, since part of the objective of this thing is to scare the crap out of everyone, what would be the best moment to do that. We should have had a pool. I'll take 9:54, since I don't know what Bible verses predict the end of the world.

9:30
It just started. I heard some semi-distant loud bangs and then a few more and then they announced the lockdown. I'm sitting on the floor away from the door and windows. Door is locked, I think, I hope.

Wow, that's REALLY loud.

9:35
Lots of yelling. Some walkie-talkie action too. I didn't know guns were that loud, though I've never shot indoors. I don't know if the yelling is all the shooter or the police too. This is properly frightening. I'm pretty sensitive to loud noises, so I'm glad I'm where I am.

9:38
I think there's still stuff going on. Oh yeah, more loud bangs. Lots of dead people in real life. Some desperate sounding yelling.

9:44
I don't think 7 minutes of quiet with no "all clear" is good news.

9:45
And it's over. Time to go for a debriefing.

9:49
So now we're all sitting in the auditorium and everyone is telling their stories of what they did and whether they heard stuff. I have no idea if it went "well." The receptionist said she screamed when the shots started and that she definitely would have been dead.

9:56
Apparently the shooter was on the other floors, not mine. Now the police and security company are coming in to tell us about it.

10:45
The debriefing is over. It was very interesting, really. They told us what had happened and that our security guard had actually neutered (actually, I think he said neutralized) the shooter. So they restarted with a second guy who got upstairs. The universal lesson was, call 911 if you're in a position to talk (as I was- the room I was in has a solid metal door and only about a foot of wall space that could have been shot through) whether it's to report something or to ask if it's safe to come out. They have a pretty sophisticated communications system for this kind of stuff. I guess the other thing is, if you're outside when this happens, channel Monty Python and Run Away!

The police got here in less than 2 minutes, which is pretty good. They stopped to take their weapons off, which I presume they would not do if it weren't a drill. So now we're supposed to get back to work, which I guess I'll do.

Old Folks Boogie

There's a line in a song by one of my favorite bands from the 70s, Little Feat. The line goes, "And you know that you're over the hill when your mind makes a body that your makes a promise that your body can't fill."  I was thinking about this recently, because I was talking with some people who didn't know how old I was. I told him that I was 59, and they were surprised and thought I was younger.

I get that a lot, but for better or worse it's true. It's weird being almost 60. That sounds old. I know that my general manner isn't old; I'm generally energetic and physical even though I'm not big or super strong or a great athlete or anything like that. I just move around a lot and I do some fairly strenuous exercise. Plus my hair isn't very gray for someone my age. So thus far, I've gotten through my life without acting my age, either when I was younger or now.

What I'm finding though, is that it's become harder and harder work to keep doing what I'm doing, since I have neither the natural energy level nor the resilience I used to. Plus stuff just hurts and you know there's a chance that it'll never get better.

There's a delicate balance in aging, because I think you need to accept certain limits on what you can and can't do, but I think it's bad for you, or at least bad for me, to focus on those limits. I'd rather overdo it and find myself exhausted than underdo it and find myself physically limited just because. A coach I know stresses the importance of practicing even when you don't feel your best, because you never how you're going to feel when you actually have to perform. Wise words, I think.

Hopefully that makes more sense than "I'm trying not to be limited by my limitations," which sounds too motivational-postery for me. It's as much related to keeping yourself strong mentally as anything else. Newtonian laws apply here- it takes effort to get moving and as you get older, it requires more and more thought to convince ones self to make the effort.

I'm not sure how to sum this up, which I think is code for I have no idea what I'm trying to say. How about, growing older is difficult but not impossible, and it's important to understand the difference between the two. That's all for now. Gotta take the garbage and recycling out, whether I feel up to it or not.

In which I use a great many words to say I like the people I was chaperoning with

I’ve now been on 5 senior trips and they were all different. Two went to a place called Split Rock Resort in a town called Lake Harmony in the Poconos (though I don't believe there actually is such a town). It’s a pleasantly run down and well equipped four season resort. It’s not my favorite kind of place because it’s in the middle of nowhere and a mile walk just to get out of the resort. I always like to know where I am, which means walking or riding around to get a feel for the area. Obviously this works best in urban areas and less well in rural ones. The other thing is that the rooms at Split Rock are suites, so I end up sharing living area with other people. This has ranged from really good to very unpleasant (yeah, got both in only 2 trips), depending on the other chaperones and staff.

The other three have been to Ocean City, MD, which I personally prefer, because it’s an actual place with actual stuff, not made-up resort things. True, much of the actual stuff is touristy crap, but I still like it better and people know what you’re talking about when you tell them where you went. Otherwise you end up having to explain something that neither you nor they really care about. Too much effort for making idle conversation. The hotel is similarly pleasant yet run down, and I get my own room. Sure, it’s a room that lacks any decor whatsoever, a view of outdoors (it looks out onto a large atrium) and fresh air, but my own room nonetheless.

It’s also possible that I like OC better because I’ve been at least nominally the lead chaperone on all of those trips and neither of the Split Rock trips. This year was more of a group effort than a single lead, which was different but okay. It was also a much smaller group. I’m used to 50-ish students and this one was 27. And 3 chaperones instead of 4 or 5. I’ve been on trips where all or some of the chaperones disliked each other and ones where everyone got along famously.

From my perspective, this one was definitely in the latter group. I can’t speak for how the others felt; they’re generally polite people. But one of the things I enjoy about these things is the chance to spend concentrated time with my colleagues, because I’m lucky enough to work someplace with people I like and respect. So as much as it’s about the kids, sometimes the adult interaction feels equally important and gratifying.

That’s a lot of what I’ll remember about this trip, because even though I’ve had never had anything but positive interaction with my co’s (the seniors like to abbreviate things, and this one can mean co-chaperones), I really didn’t know them very well. There were other things that gave me some trepidation, but thinking back it’s always that way unless we've done trips together before. For someone lacking good instincts for social interaction (okay, maybe completely lacking is more accurate), this kind of close contact is terrifying, but it’s a terror I’m familiar with.

At my current stage of life, I don’t go through a lot of insecurity and fear that people won’t like me. I’m pretty self-confident and, to be honest, I’ve not found it helpful to worry about what people think of me. But my tendency to view every moment as a blank slate can make things unsettling when I’m outside my comfort zone, as concentrated time with people you don’t know very well can be. And although my instinct in these times is to disengage rather then jump into it, I’m fully aware that many of my best experiences have happened outside my comfort zone. So I approached the whole experience with the co's with what you might call optimistic terror.

Whew! That was exhausting. I’m not trying to be confessional, but it’s dumb to take the time to write about this if I don’t bother expressing my feelings about it. It’s my blog, and skipping the important stuff would make it pointless.

And enough meta. Here’s what I know. You can’t really understand someone until you’ve played mini golf with them. Maybe it doesn’t have to be exactly mini golf, but dumb as that sounds, a game is a far more personal experience than anything that can happen in the hallways at work. You also can’t understand someone unless you see them first thing in the morning, late that same evening, and in easy situations and tricky ones, because sometimes it’s hard to know the difference. You can learn about someone’s openness, sensitivity, intelligence and dedication. Which is a lot of important stuff in getting a sense for a person.

So part of what I take away is an appreciate for how great these people are, given that that’s not a given, (is that even close to being correct grammatically?). I got to see it for myself. It made the whole experience more fulfilling and more fun.

Day 3

Notice that my titles are getting shorter as I get increasingly fatigued.

The last day started, for me anyway, with another bike ride. This time I rode into the wind first, a journey that took me from the hotel southbound toward the boardwalk area. I should have checked whether you can ride on the boardwalk here. In some places you can before stores open, plus at least for part of it, OC has both a boardwalk and a parallel wide concrete path. That would have been fun. It was still fun.

Lots of people don't like riding in urban areas. I grew up in Brooklyn and rode all the time, and when I moved back to New York in the late 70's the previous occupants of the apartment had left a beat up 3-speed old Schwinn girl's bike- the perfect city bike, indestructible and worthless: too old and ugly to be worth stealing with even minimal locking up. I rode all over Manhattan on that bike. Okay, not through Times Square or anything, but anywhere most people would be comfortable driving a car. So I don't mind.

It's not like I don't know the risks, but for all the risk in urban areas, people are generally moving slowly compared to on suburban roads, and the principles are the same. You ride far enough from parked cars to avoid getting doored. Even if you're not going to actually stop at a red light, be ready to and more generally, respect the rules even if you're not going to follow them to the letter. But above all ride without fear.

I don't mean that you shouldn't be cautious. I'm an extremely cautious rider; I've been riding 100-150 miles a week for the past dozen summers without even coming close to having an accident or fall. But what I mean is that you can't ride around fearfully, expecting trouble at every moment. You can't do that well any more than you can drive that way. You look for and anticipate potential trouble spots, and once you've taken a course you go with it, ready to react but not expecting to. So cautious, but confident. I don't know, it works for me.

So anyway, I don't mind riding down the street in Ocean City, which hardly qualifies as urban anyway. There's a shared bus/bike lane; it's the only place I've seen such a thing, but if you can keep up a decent rate of speed, the bus won't ever catch you. Going into the wind that's not entirely possible, but with the wind I actually put distance on the bus behind me and almost caught the one in front.

Then it was time to pack and get out of town. The students, I have to say, were remarkably efficient at cleaning and packing. In past years there's always been some group that trashed their room and required major cleanup. But not this year. So we got out on time and headed for an amusement center.

Unfortunately, most of the parks don't fully open until June 1, but we found one with go karts, mini golf, bumper boats, and a couple of other things.

And then it was time to go home, so off we went. It was fun. Very hot and muggy, but fun. And now we're off for home.

Once I've had a chance to process this, I'll do another post on my overall impressions, but we'll be back at school shortly and I want to get this done

Senior Trip, day 2

The second day was bright and beautiful and extremely windy. I woke up and went for a bike ride. I headed north and went about 8 miles to Bethany Beach. A few years ago I was here and went up that way with a student, not realizing that we had the wind at our back the entire time. We laughed a lot once we turned around and realized, but it was really hard and long. So this time, I was prepared. It was still long and hard, but being prepared made it a lot easier to bear. 

After my bike ride, we were all going to go for watersports, paddle boards, kayaks, etc. One of the kids wasn’t feeling well, so I decided to stay at the hotel just in case they needed something. This entailed sitting on the beach, so it doesn’t mean that I was suffering or anything. It was the kind of windy that sandblasts you, so I rented an umbrella to screen the wind, not the sun. It worked well enough for me to sit and read for an hour and a half. 

Once the others came back (they had a pretty windy experience as well), we had lunch and then some free time. Some people went down toward the boardwalk area to sit on the beach there, while others sat on a nice grassy area and sunned. I joined in that group. It was very pleasant. I went for a walk to see what the houses on the side streets looked like. Most of them were extremely nondescript, (yes, I’m aware that particular phase is pretty much meaningless), though one looked like a medieval castle, complete with turrets. I also saw what has to be the most useless road sign ever.

Probably would have been more useful at the beginning of the street

Eventually everyone wandered in and we showered and then many of us ice skated until dinner. We then loaded on the bus and went to the boardwalk. Ocean City has a nice boardwalk; it’s very long and well stocked with tacky shops and places to get fried food (fried anything really), ribald t-shirts, candy and ice cream.

I opted for the last 2, and the ice cream (vanilla/chocolate swirl with rainbow sprinkles. This led to an extended conversation as to the supposed difference between sprinkles and jimmies. Is it chocolate sprinkles and rainbow jimmies, or vice versa? Or both sprinkles or jimmies. This is not the same as whether you say envelope or ahn-velope, this is a much more pronounced (so to speak) difference.

We left without settling the dispute, but not before I got chocolate ice cream (or is it custard? Argh!) on my pants.  Duly christened, we returned to the hotel, where the kids did a bonding activity and then we eventually settled into bed. 

Senior trip 2015 day 1.

So yeah, I know, I haven't posted anything yet. Sometimes on these trips you get busy. And sometimes you just don't feel like writing. Ask a writer.

The last time I chaperoned the senior trip, there were 50 students and 4 chaperones, which made for long day, especially since the weather wasn't good and we had to make plans to keep everyone busy and happy. This time, there are 27 students and 3 chaperones, and it's relatively mellow. Not that anyone has ever used that word to describe this year's seniors. But one of the things you notice on trips like this that relative to the population at large, our students are smart, well-behaved and for the most part use good common sense.

We got here around noon and because of a bunch of late checkouts post-Memorial Day, none of our rooms were ready. When we finally got one available, all the girls went there to change and the boys changed in the banquet room. I guess that's what they call it. We were not having any banquets, though I can't say the same for the senior class of the Salisbury Christian School, who were having a fancy affair in a neighboring room. I guess if you occasionally have a banquet in a room, you can always call it that. For us, it's a place to eat and meet. Eventually all the rooms were ready and everyone moved in.

The hotel is not fancy but nicely located right on the beach in a quiet part of town. They have a large atrium with a small skating rink. The hotel is called Carousel, but I think they put a food stand where the carousel used to be. The rooms are pretty bare bones as far as decor is concerned, but large and equipped with refrigerators and microwaves. We have a coach bus take us down here and the bus stays with us for outings.

Today the bus took the kids down to the boardwalk for a quick scavenger hunt I stayed at the hotel and got myself settled. They came back wanting more time down there, so we'll go back. We had dinner and then went to play laser tag. I'm being a slug and not playing laser tag. I don't like shooting games and tag was never my favorite game as a kid. I was more a play sports games type, and if we were doing one of those traditional kid games we'd do hide and seek, or occasionally, freeze tag.

So I played mini golf on a not especially challenging, though interestingly decorated, course. After it was done was the highlight, as a prom invitation appeared on an electronic sign in the parking lot. It malfunctioned briefly and we scrambled to stall while the manager ran up to the office and rebooted their computer. Ultimately it was very cute and deemed an awesome way to do it.

Back to the hotel then, where a bunch of us walked across the street to the supermarket. Strolling around a supermarket with teenagers is fun. They wander up and down the aisles somewhat aimlessly, with a general expressions of "wow, look at this." They were teasing me that I probably knew the exact layout and had a plan when I went to the supermarket. I admitted that not only do I have that but I have it for multiple supermarkets.

Eventually to bed. A full day here tomorrow.

Bruges to Brussels

The last morning in Bruges I had a task. My task was to find the Saturday market and report back whether it was worth a visit before we left town. The market was about a 10 minute walk away, up a street that was totally under construction, the better to bring in a bunch of new mall shops. I don't think there are any Starbucks there yet, though I may be wrong on that. But the other main street up to the market is lined with Tommy Hilfiger and Zara as well as snack shops.

Even on a Saturday morning in a light rain, the men were busy laying in yet more cobblestones. The street was pretty much deserted; one café was open. People do not get up early around here. The very good coffee shop across the street from the hotel doesn't open until 9. Can you imagine? I got up to the market around 8:45 and it was open and still setting up. I could smell it a block away. Dozens of chickens on rotisseries, meats, cheeses, charcuterie, baked goods, all beautiful. That was one half. The other half was slower to set up, and it included all kinds of clothing and household items, from mops and dish drainers to pants to "As seen on TV" miracle products.

It was nice enough, but hardly picturesque and not in any way rustic. Everything was in trailers, with all the requisite equipment. I knew there was a more locally oriented market nearby, so I followed the people and found a smaller square with smaller, less slick-looking stands, mostly with produce, but let's not ignore the live poultry section. Get it while it's fresh.

After due consideration, we decided to get to Brussels instead. The drive was incredibly easy, as was the car dropoff at one of the train stations downtown (I'd read horror stories about it but also stories that said it was simple). The cab driver didn't exactly know where the hotel was, but we got here okay. Then we headed out to visit the art museum.

I've been to a bunch of these older type museums, but this one was by far the most chaotic. They have combined 3 museums into one and have totally shuffled the curation as a result. It was incredibly hard to find anything, though we did eventually get to the paintings we wanted to see. We then wandered down the the Grand Place, of Grote Markt, depending on whether you're of the French or Flemish persuasion. Everything here is in 2 languages, although everyone I've interacted with speaks French. I can speak French just well enough to get myself in trouble. I guess my accent is good enough that people think I can really speak the language and am not just doing the best I can to be polite.

We had lunch down there and then walked around and bought some chocolates. The place was packed. It's a very large square (one might even call it 'grote') with some grand and beautiful buildings. One end is under renovation (we noticed that one of the buildings had been cleaned and re-gilted since our last visit) and over the scaffolding the have life-size pictures of the buildings. On the ground floor? Starbucks.

The walk back was a chore. It's uphill the whole way and it was windy and slightly rainy out. We got back to the hotel just before it started to pour. It's cleared up now and we'll be going out for the evening sometime soon.

What happens in Bruges

We had dinner our first night in Bruges at a place called Bistro Zwart Huis. A lively, not at all fancy spot with good food and atmosphere. The waiters were all these middle-aged guys and they were all characters in some way. A guy with a ponytail who winked a lot, that kind of thing. Our waiter was tall and thin and had a prominent and carefully shaped beard. I had a good steak with fries (what, no mayonnaise?) and a great, classic Belgian beer called Tripel Karmeleit, which I'd not had in a long time and thoroughly enjoyed.

We slept well and I woke up early enough to climb the Belfort, or bell tower. They really like ringing bells around here. They have a whole carillon song going the whole time the clock is chiming, which makes for a pretty but chaotic sound. The tower, in a slightly fictionalized arrangement, figures in a prominent scene in the movie In Bruges. Of course, if you're shooting a movie in a place that has a clock tower that looks like this, you have to make it a key part of the movie. It worked for Hitchcock.

The tower opens at 9:30. I got there are 9:20 because I wanted to get back in time for breakfast, which is only served until 10:30 at the hotel. I wasn't first in line, but there were only a few people ahead of me. So in and up I went.

There were a few places to stop along the way. There are bells and what they refer to as a drum that looks like one of those cute little music boxes that kids like, except this one is about the size of a tank. And the gears that work it are equally big. I have no idea what sounds this makes but I wouldn't want to be in the room with them when they are being made.

Up and up I went until I got to the top. It was 363 steps (that's what they say and the teenagers who arrived shortly after me counted them just to make sure). The bells up there are very large. One of the smaller ones rang at 9:45 and it made everyone up there jump. The view was amazing though.

Going down was somewhat more harrowing than going up. Dodging the people coming up was particularly amusing.

Got back to the hotel at 9:55, just in time for breakfast. It was your basic hotel buffet thing. Then we went for a walk around the rest of the city. It seemed much more crowded today, perhaps because it was Friday and perhaps because we were out late afternoon. But it was kind of hard to find a quiet spot. Still very pretty, and we saw the one particular thing we wanted to, a gorgeous Michelangelo madonna and child sculpture that was originally intended for the Siena Cathedral but was bought by some rich family here and placed in the church. 

We walked until around 3 and then had some lunch and a nap. Dinner awaits.

Getting out of town

Considering how hard it is to walk in Amsterdam, you can just imagine how intimidating the idea of driving was. We had a car reserved somewhat nearby, but the prospect of dealing with driving back from the rental place to the hotel and then out of town was incredibly unattractive. So I checked with the concierge and we decided that it would be best just to check out and take a taxi to the rental car agency.

This turned out to be an excellent choice. The rental car place turned out to be a significant drive and it was perfectly pleasant picking up our car and heading off to Bruges. We had discussed possibly taking some back roads and making a stop or two along the way, but ultimately Ronnie suggested that we just get to Bruges so we could have more time here. I agreed and ultimately it was a smart move.

The drive was unremarkable. One doesn't necessarily remark on drives anyway, and since nothing bad happened, we'll follow suit here.

Bruges, on the other hand, is remarkable. It's a well-preserved medieval town that's been transformed into a tourist haven. It's somewhat reminiscent of the Italian hill towns, except larger, Siena is a reasonable analog. But this place has way more eye candy that Siena can dream about. Not sure why. Siena is pretty. But this is one of those places where every time you turn a corner you see something beautiful.

Now that I think about it, Verona is maybe a better comparison, though they don't have marble sidewalks here. Just cobblestones. Lots and lots of cobblestones. Someone in the vicinity must have been doing some serious cobbling to come up with all these stones. I understand why it seemed like a good idea back in the day. It's cheap material, I presume, and extremely durable. It's also ridiculously tiring to try to walk on because it's very hard and very uneven, and making both the sidewalk and streets out of the same material makes them indistinguishable and kind of defeats the purpose of the whole thing, don't you think? But I suppose back in the 13th century when people only lived 30 or 40 years it wan't a big deal. Not much vehicular traffic back then. But for 60 year-old knees and feet, it's tough going.

The good news is, it's worth it. Our hotel is a couple of blocks from the main square. Okay, I should stop here and note that Ronnie and I are huge fans of the movie, In Bruges. This is a movie that requires a particular sensibility to really enjoy. It's not for everyone, but it's definitely for us. So we will eventually hit all the key sites from the movie. But for today we "settled" for a gorgeous walkaround hitting a number of the main attractions.

Aside from the attractiveness of the place, it's got a wide variety of nice shops and restaurants. Combine that with a small scale the fact that it's very safe, and I can see it being a great family destination. That being said, after a few minutes, we couldn't wait to get out of the crowded part of town and into the quiet, pretty edges.

Fortunately, we're here on a Thursday and not the weekend, because if it's this crowded today, I can only imagine what will be on Saturday. We'll tour around more tomorrow. I'm getting up early to climb the bell tower.

Morning walk on the last day.

I went for a long walk this morning. On purpose this time. It's easy to make your walks overly long in Amsterdam. The whole concentric semicircle thing makes it all very confusing to plan routes. I wanted to talk over to the old Portuguese Synagogue. We've been there before, but it's pretty spectacular.

The shortest route over there was straight and I knew from experience that it was kind of crowded and unattractive, so I went for the innermost canal and minimized first my circumference and then my time spent walking straight. I walked through the so-called flower market, which had lots and lots and lots of bulbs, but no flowers to speak of. All the way I'm dodging bikes and cars and scooters. But not trams. Nobody screws with the trams; they are the badasses of public transit and to be honest, everyone not on them is terrified of them. They are huge and go fast and of course can't stop very quickly. Nearly saw someone trying to get a stroller across the tracks get stuck and nailed yesterday.

I took some videos while I was walking here's a couple

So you get the idea. Amsterdam is impossible and marvelous at the same time. On the live here/not live here scale I would put it solidly in the live here column, but with some reservations.

Speaking of which, let me describe the hotel to you a bit, now that we've left it. Excellent location. It's a partial block of canal houses all connected, so you go up and down stairs to get from one part to the other. Our room faces the canal and it's beautiful, and the bed is among the most comfortable we've ever encountered. The downside is that the room and the bathroom are both small, and there wasn't enough room to put all of our clothing. It worked out okay, because I'm okay using my suitcase as a drawer. The staff is uniformly great.

I'll post a full review on TripAdvisor. I'd say we really liked it but didn't absolutely love it. Four stars out of five.

Third day, which is enough

Can't way we woke up today excited. We were both very tired and we not really sure what to do this morning. I went to the gym and did what is perhaps the stupidest thing one could do in Amsterdam, that being riding an exercise bicycle. This is a city that thrives on people getting from here to there on bicycles, so what business have I pretending to ride a bike while listening to awful dance music in a small room, laughingly referred to as a gym? Whatever. i didn't feel like going out and renting a bike. So sue me.

We got up late, had breakfast, and went to explore a new neighborhood that supposedly had shopping possibilities. Not. Didn't even get cheese this time. And then when we came home, we rode on a tram for part of the way, and then I asked the driver if we could transfer to the bus at a convenient spot. What he neglected to mention was that the busses and trams are different companies and yes, you can transfer, but you have to pay again. Even though they stop at the same stops. Does this make any sense at all? The Dutch are usually so logical about this kind of stuff.

But we got back. Had a quick bite to eat and then went to have a massage. The hotel that we're staying in is very nice but is mall and does not have have a spa. So they booked us massages at a nearby day spa. That was different. Don't get me wrong, it was very nice and the massage was good, but compared to what happens in a US spa there's no easy comparison. First of all, no matter what spa you enter in the US you have to sign a waiver of liability, so if the massage therapist does something that kills you and you have even a hint of a preexisting condition, you can't sue them

Second thing, one locker room. There is a little toilet room if you don't want to get naked in a co-ed room, but nobody else seemed to mind. The waiting room was like the salon of a grand house. It was a really beautiful building with all kinds of art nouveau decor inside, and the massage rooms were fine.

In any event, we walked home more relaxed and then took a pleasant cruise around the Amsterdam canals on a beautifully preserved old boat.

It's quite a remarkable city, and a lot quieter and less hectic on the water. The canals are lined with houseboats and apparently just a space to park a boat costs a quarter of a million Euros (that's what they call their money here, even though we all know dollars are the only real money). The boat is extra, and some of them are pretty amazing. Kind of like a nicer version of a double-wide trailer with a much nicer ambience to boat. I mean, to boot.

After the ride we rested a bit until dinner, which was at a local restaurant called Envy. If you want to know the whole story, you can read my TripAdvisor review once I've posted it. But it was a ridiculous meal in many ways. Everything except the food was incompetent and the food was very very good.

The waitstaff seemed to be stumbling over each other a bit, and we were chuckling with the German people at the next table about it. At the table beyond the Germans, there was a very attractive young couple who were pawing at each other the whole time and at one point both just leaned over the table and started kissing and did not stop until their waiter came with food.

Once we were done with dinner, we tried to pay the check. In Europe, they use these little wireless charge machines that they bring to the table. Theirs was literally taped together and simply refused to work. Eventually someone decided to restart it and it finally worked, but Ronnie and I and the Germans were laughing so hard at that point it was hard to take the restaurant seriously, even  though they clearly want to be so.

Enough of Amsterdam. Off the Bruges tomorrow.

Rest of the second day.

We got back from Keukenhof with a kind of "what now?" kind of feeling.  I mean, after this, where can you possibly go?

We've been here before, we hit the sights we wanted to. Amsterdam is a cool place, but I've been surprised at how many people who recently arrived here are asking us questions looking things to do. The conclusion I draw here is that Amsterdam is a great place to hang out. There are countless young, aimless-looking sorts everywhere, but there isn't that much to actually do. I mean, unless you include drinking or smoking, only one of which I'm doing and neither of which actually constitutes an activity (though some frequenting the Coffee Shops may disagree).

So we fell back on the old standby, shopping. We'd exhausted the local streets, so we headed for another area, which was very nice. We didn't buy anything. except cheese and some apple cake, but it was still pleasant.

Back to the hotel for a nap and then out to dinner. I wanted something slightly more upscale this go round, so we went to a nice restaurant not too far from here. The food was fine, but overall it's hard not to draw the conclusion that this isn't a foodie destination. You don't see a lot of Dutch restaurants elsewhere.

Regardless, it was a perfectly nice dinner. When we got back, I had kind of an anxiety thing where I'd been sitting around too much and had to go out for a walk. This happens to me occasionally; I'm not very good at sitting still for a long time, and though we'd been out and about some, I needed to move.

So I went out for a walk. At 11:00 at night. Fortunately, this is a good town to do that kind of thing in. It's very very safe, and as I said to Ronnie, I was more afraid of being run over by a bike or scooter than of being mugged, for example. The streets were very busy and active, though I was probably the oldest person still out there.

Stopped paying attention at one point, which is a bad idea here, and ended up walking much further than I wanted to, but it was beautiful out and not in any way bad.

Keukenhof

Today, after a bit of discussion on how to pronounce our destination, to Keukenhof, the premier bulb garden in the world, I suppose. Thirty-five hectares planted with 7 million bulbs. I continue to deny the existence of a hectare as an actual unit of measurement and believe it to be purposely indecipherable and therefore seemingly impressive.

North Holland, like the Northeastern US, had a very cool, grey, damp spring, which means that the full bulb display was not yet to be seen. But for a partial showing, this was pretty darned impressive. You enter the place through the usual big attraction gates and you get kind of a Disneyland feel right off the bat. Maybe that's because you have a calliope in the entrance plaza playing calliope versions of classic rock songs. Actually, I'm kind of bummed that I didn't buy the CD they were offering there, because what could be better to liven up a party than some calliope.

Saying something has a Disneyland feel can sound pejorative, but it wasn't really like that. It's a beautifully designed garden full of a variety of plantings, some permanent, some torn up every year and replanted. Because of the weather, the main tulip show was not to be seen, including the tulip mosaic of a Van Gogh self-portrait. But there we still thousands and thousands of flowers everywhere, and an huge indoor pavilion that had every kind of tulip imaginable.

I mean, I knew there were a lot of kinds of tulips, but really?

We walked around for a couple of hours and saw a lot of wonderful flowers and plants ready to have flowers. It was really pleasant and a fun trip, as you can see.

I'll fill in the rest of the morning (it's about 1 AM now).

Second day in Amsterdam.

The second day after a multi-time zone trip is when it really hits, at least for me. I always feel kind of borderline lousy all day. Not enough to hole up in the hotel room, but enough to get in the way of total enjoyment of the experience.

As an aftermath to my walking this morning, I should point out that as nicely scaled and attractive as this town is, it's an impossible place to walk. I can handle the brick sidewalks; they're uneven but there's rarely anything to trip on. The problem is that in many places they are simply too narrow. Combine that with the fact that both bicycles and motor scooters ride whichever way they want on the street or the sidewalk if they so choose, regardless of one-wayness, and there's simply no sure way to maneuver. It's not so much of a problem if you're walking by yourself, but you simply can't walk side-by-side with someone with any level of comfort.

That's a problem because I am here with someone and we walk around a lot together. Today we went to the Rijk Museum. All the signs make that one word but the museum itself seems to separate them. I don't get it and I don't care. The language here is opaque. I know English is ridiculous too, but they just use so many damned letters to spell anything here. It seems incompatible with the whole Dutch aura, which is to take it as it comes and make money off it, whatever it is. They're traders, but I guess they have their own language so as to have something incomprehensible to foreigners, all of whose languages they understand. It's a ploy, clearly.

We took the bus there, which was quick and easy and we liked what Ronnie referred to as the "time-out chair."

Last time we were here, the museum was under renovation and they had a kind of "greatest hits" thing in what felt to me a small and kind of cramped place. The actual museum as a whole is huge and rambling to the point of being unamangeable, kind of like the Louvre, where you can't get from one place to another without having to backtrack. The other thing is that there's nothing international about this place, even though it's one of the world's great museums. It's all Dutch. If you don't like Dutch painting, do not any under any circumstances go there, because there ain't nothing else. There's plenty of great Dutch painting, don't get me wrong, but don't expect to find a Monet or DaVinci or even Rubens, who can't have been from more than 100 miles from here.

Anyway, we saw what we wanted to see and then walked back, first on one of the most crowded, tackiest shopping streets I've ever been to. I was surprised to find a couple of places where we'd eaten last time visiting still there, as was the sports bar where we watched the famous Zinedine Zidane headbutt game with a huge crowd of French and Italian football fans. Which reminds me, the other thing I learned today at the museum is why all their athletic teams, soccer and Olympic most notable, where orange. It's because of William of Orange, whom I presume never wore anything orange in his life, but who led the rebellion agains the Spanish that led to Dutch independence. So there.

We escaped that street and headed back for the hotel, where we did some more sedate shopping and had lunch. Then back to the room for a nap and then suddenly it was time for dinner.

Dinner was at a trendy-type place with DJ and a guy occasionally accompanying him badly on a keyboard. Not really sure what the deal was there. The food was uneven but it was fun. It seemed like everyone there knew each other. Then back to the hotel to wind down for bedtime. Off to the botanical gardens tomorrow. Should be amazing.

Waking up

I actually slept pretty well considering it was absolutely the wrong time to go to sleep and wake up in the morning. Second day of a trip like this is when the jet lag really hits, and you have to force your way through the day. You may not feel horrible, but you never feel really good. It's also gray and ever so slightly drizzly. Sounds like the perfect day for a museum.

Which is what we're doing today. I got myself out of bed around eight, had some coffee to set my body clock and then went for a walk. The hotel is a block from the Anne Frank house. As I walked along the street I could see that at 8:30 in the morning the line was already halfway around the block to get in. I don't know if we just got lucky last time, but I don't remember waiting anything like that to get in. 

Because of the cold drizzly thing, I didn't want to go to far from the hotel, so I zigzagged through local streets. It's very pretty here, not pretty the way French somehow managed to do it. It's more utilitarian, but still with a little bit of an eye for what might be attractive. Also bicycles friggin everywhere. There's a pretty good number with people riding them and thousands more chained to every conceivable immovable object and to each other.

What I remember of the first day

We got to Amsterdam about 45 minutes early. This is the only kind of flight where you don't want to get in early. Flights from them US go overnight and get in early morning, before rooms are customarily available at hotels, so early means more time at the hotel uncomfortably and at times desperately waiting. Even on the best of flights, and this one was fine, you sleep maybe a couple of hours, and when you get in you're dying to just lie down.

Ronnie and I both got a bit of sleep on the flight, which kept us from being completely miserable the moment we got here. Nonetheless, I've spent more enjoyable times on my vacations than waiting in a lobby for a room to become available. The Hotel Pulitzer, recommended by a friend, is a very nice hotel, and we were able to pass the time in not too uncomfortable circumstances.

I was concerned, though, because, as we Jews are inclined to forget, there's a segment of the population that thinks the Sunday after the first day of Passover is special in some way. And when we asked the concierge at the hotel, he thought that most things would be closed today. So the combination of no room and nothing to do was not too palatable. But was it turned out, there were a pretty decent number of things open. The Dutch are definitely not what you would describe as a devout people. In fact, when looking into what you could do on Easter, one thing I saw that you almost certainly couldn't do was go to church. Most churches here have been closed and put to other use.

So we got a canal view room

and took a nap, and it took me only about 10 minutes to find something that looked like fun. There's a Sunday market the first Sunday of each month, and they had lots of special activities planned, as translated from Dutch inimitably by Google,

Inside:
Making Easter workshop Candy Cottage at The Bread Art Club 
Easter workshop Chickens Hooks "and" Chick PomPom tinkering 'at Mill Girls 
Eggs painting in the kids corner 
Chocolate egg hunt over the terrain 
3D printing of egg cups at Foundation CRE8 
Free Buttons the designs of Nik-Nak design 
Live draw Luigi Jansen 
Let portraits in manga style signs in Tokyo Doll 
Have your face painted at Nida Jut 
let you predict future Karin Rabbit 
Let your funky cut by Judith 

Let feather extensions in your hair put in Feathers by Marieke 

Yes. Hairstyling. But ultimately, it was a big  indoor/outdoor street market with a least a couple of hundred stalls selling everything from kids' clothing to lamb skins to Tupperware to glassware and pottery and a bunch of food stands, which featured foods from around the world. We each had a plate of pinxtos, which are the Basque version of tapas. Very yummy. And we spent a very pleasant hour walking around the market and adjoining park.

Afterwards, we came back to the hotel and strolled around the neighborhood, which was about 50-50 open-closed. It was chilly out, but very pleasant. Back then, for another nap, after which I went for a long walk, past lots of Coffee Shops, which were 100% open. It ended up being a very nice day for an arrival day after an overnight flight that I'd expected to be nightmarish.

Dinner was at a local joint that we'd seen recommended that offered typical Dutch food. This, of course, brought up the inevitable question of what the actual name of this country is. Apparently, it's The Netherlands, which is a kingdom, of which North and South Holland are part. Amsterdam is in North Holland. Why the people are then called Dutch is another matter and far too confusing for this writer after this particularly long day.

So I had that typical Dutch main course, spare ribs, which by the way, was by far the most popular dish in the place based on what I saw the waiters carrying. They were fine. I also had a Dutch shrimp cocktail (hey, it's Easter, no kosher stuff for me) which was quite good and made up of a couple hundred of the tiniest shrimp I've ever seen. And of course, an indigenous beverage served in its indigenous flagon.

So all in all, a pretty decent day for a first day in Amsterdam. Off to the museum tomorrow.

Off to Amsterdam

Of course we got to the airport too early. I always do that. I don’t like missing flights and I’ve never arrived at my originating airport too late to make a flight. I read something recently that said that on the basis of cost-benefit analysis, if you never miss a flight then you are getting to the airport too early. On one hand, my family is consistently annoyed that we get to the airport and are then sitting around for up to an hour. On the other hand, on the occasion that we hit traffic or a long line at security, we’re always happy that we had the cushion.

This time, we definitely got to the airport too soon. Maybe it was the time I decided to leave, maybe it was the total lack of traffic, maybe it was the Jesus-loving fast-driving cabbie, who so doused the cab with odorizing spray that you could see the droplets hanging in the air and forced us to ride the whole way on the expressway at 70 miles per hour with the windows open. Or maybe it was the fact that, in spite of all people’s bitching, airline check-in is much quicker and more efficient than it ever was in the so-called good old days. Bur we got to the airport and through security an hour before your flight began boarding.

This really wasn’t so bad. It gave us an opportunity to sit in an unused and uncrowded gate area close to our actual gate and consider our food options. We bought sandwiches at a place called Guava Java, a nonsensically named airport stand that I’ve never seen anywhere else just to ensure that we didn’t starve to death between here and Amsterdam.

Our flight, which was mercifully not very full, left right on time and will deposit us in Amsterdam just around the time we would normally go to bed. This is always a difficult problem with overseas travel and I’m surprised more hotels have not taken advantage of the opportunity to make rooms available in the morning. Only one hotel I contacted had that kind of thing, and we opted not to stay there. Hopefully we can find a place to lie down at the hotel we’ll be using. I may try to sleep a bit.