Friday, June 2, 2000

We're very ready to go home. The trip has been great fun (despite some of my sarcastic comments about the maturity level of Dutch students) and very worthwhile. We have learned a lot about the small but significant differences between the US and at least one small part of the rest of the world. We have experienced not knowing the language; though not to any seriously inconveniencing level, thanks to Dutch polyglotary (if that's not a word, well, it is now). We've practiced living with less stuff than we usually do, which may possibly help us throw some junk away when we get home (we are both pack rats). We have practiced a somewhat slower lifestyle.

But we're a little homesick. We're a little tired. We miss our friends in the US, and we're ready to go home.

We spent a couple hours in the morning packing; we couldn't do the majority of our packing last night, not just because we got back from Cambridge late, but also because we put lots of clothes into the dryer, and because a major component of our packing was the duvet that we slept under last night. We finished the packing about 45 minutes before we wanted to leave for the station, so we got to sit down and talk for a bit at the end.

Our gracious hostess drove us to Cambridge, where we bought tickets and caught the express to Kings Cross, thence down the street to the Thameslink to Gatwick. Did a little shopping at the tax-free stores (chocolate!), found our plane, and had no trouble getting seats, as it was relatively empty. The trip to Detroit was almost completely uneventful, except for being overlooked when they brought lunch around, which they fixed promptly when asked.

However, the Detroit airport was a terrible zoo, and they kept reassigning gates at a frenetic pace. We went to our gate, waited for a gate agent to show up (they were unable to assign our seats at Gatwick), and just after she showed up, we watched a virtual fireworks display on the gate sign. In about three minutes, they went through five different flights assigned to that gate; while the gate agent called up to complain about it, the sign changed three times in about 40 seconds. She told us that our flight had been reassigned to a gate on the far side of the airport, and that she could not process our tickets, so we ran for it. Miracle of miracles, they had not reassigned the gate when we got there, and the plane actually did leave from that gate... We got the last two seats together on the plane (in an exit row) and got on board. As they were about to close the door, Kim discovered that she had lost her jacket. We think that she left it at the old gate. The gate agent at our gate was offensive and abusive when we tried to retrieve it, but the other crew were friendly and helpful, and one ramp crew member ran to the other gate in an attempt to retrieve it in time for us to take with us. [Later: It appears to have been lost permanently. Time for another trip to REI.]

A local friend picked us up at the airport (definitely a real friend, since it was nearly midnight when he dropped us off at our house) and we unpacked necessary items and stumbled into bed after setting our alarm so that we wouldn't sleep through tomorrow's wedding.