Have I blogged about how much we love traveling by train in Europe? Oh OK! Have I blogged about how much we love Switzerland and Holland? Oh OK! Have I blogged about how fortunate we feel to have such wonderful friends and family in both places? Oh OK! Have I blogged about our next trip to Switzerland/Holland? NO! Well, you can expect that I will be -- because as long as our health and our finances allow, we will be returning. But for this trip, it was time to return to the USA -- after 3 fantastic weeks. And, so -- we arrived at Amsterdam Central station from Dordrecht on yet another beautifully, sunny day. Amsterdam immediately felt comfortable because of our prior 2009 trip here but I wasn't feeling my best because of a sneezing/runny nose cold I acquired in the last couple days. At first I thought it might be allergies to the many wonderful, flowering blossoms aided by the great weather -- but, alas, concluded it was just an old fashioned cold -- but with no body ache symptoms. Our hotel was just a few steps from the train station -- so I decided to see if some extra sleep might turn the cold around. It is always amazing how a little extra sleep can help reenergize me -- it's a trait I've likely inherited from my dad who has long been known for his "power naps." Anyway, the extra sleep worked its magic and by evening we were walking the streets, taking in the sights, sounds and people of the very interesting and beautiful city of Amsterdam.
The next morning we decided to take a walking tour. Having previously seen much of Amsterdam's highlights on our 2009 trip and having experienced a wonderful "free" NewEurope tour in Munich -- we decided to try the similarly organized "free" NewEurope tour of Amsterdam. The tours are set up for one to decide at the end whether and how much of a gratuity to give. Once again we weren't disappointed -- as we enjoyed new perspectives and sights in Amsterdam. Thereafter we found a nice restaurant to celebrate our successful Europe2011 trip and packed for our return flight on April 20.
The Europe part of this trip was ending -- but the journey was continuing with the next stop being San Diego where we will be meeting up with son Neal, his wife Anna and our newest grandchild, Geneva (born March 2). As far back as when we planned this journey, we knew that Neal/Anna would be in San Diego for Neal to attend/present a paper at a philosophy conference -- and, back then knowing that they were expecting Geneva (then called "The Peanut"), and for virtually no additional air flight cost, we decided to proceed to San Diego for 6 nights.
Our initial 9 hour flight from Amsterdam to Philadelphia went smoothly in what was going to be a very long, tiring day -- as flight changes over the past 8 months ended up giving us a 4 hour layover in Philadelphia before proceeding on another 5 1/2 hour flight to San Diego. But at boarding time for our San Diego flight, US Air requested volunteers to give up their seats on the oversold flight in return for $375 each in future travel, a night's hotel stay, $15 each in meal allowance and a nonstop flight the following morning (April 21) arriving by 10:30am in San Diego. We knew immediately that it would be perfect for us -- and so we were soon headed to an area motel with the vouchers and being able to cancel that night's pre-arranged motel in San Diego. Could it be that we were just handed a $800 gift AND we could get a night's sleep before continuing to San Diego without any disruption to our plans (we hadn't planned to meet up with the kids until the next day anyway)? 'Tis true!
So, as I finish these last couple blog postings -- includng this one -- we are cruising at 36000 feet somewhere over Missouri -- within onboard wifi -- scheduled for an ontime landing at San Diego at 10:30am.
We'll fly home from San Diego next Tuesday, April 26.
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