This time, I am writing to you all from my room in the basement back at my house. I was thinking about posting yesterday, but truth be told, while thinking about what I would write I fell into a deep peaceful sleep. The only bad part was that this took place at about 7 at night (which would be 2 am in Europe. So, I woke up, totally refreshed here in Wisconsin at approximately 2:30 in the morning, and have I ever been bored!
Our trip home began in Imperia, Italy at around 9:30 in the morning. Our German escorts, Armin and Danella, who should be thanked very much for coming with us and being our drivers, got us up and moving for one last farewell at Laterna Blu, Massimo's restaurant. It was good to see him one last time, bid him a final farewell, and wish him the best in his endeavors. We made it to Nice, France with about a half an hour to get on our plane. The only problem is that we went to the wrong concourse, and so had to quick load everything back into the vans and drive across the airport, and try ot get on our plane. It felt like I was carrying out a drill in boot camp, honestly.
Unfortunately, only 8 of our 11people made it to the plane in Nice. Somehow, tickets got confused with Delta; so Haley, Amanda and Alyssa, along with James, were stuck in France for the first portion of my time in Amsterdam. We were able to find internet upon landing in Amsterdam, and found out that they would find us later on in the night, as they got onto a later flight from Nice.
And so for the first five or six hours in Amsterdam, we met up with a friend that Lee had that lives in Holland. She took us to the city, which was very beautiful. The architecture is very old and really awesome to behold. She took us out to lunch, where I found out that a hamburger in Holland is actually a bratwurst patty. Strange things all over the world, I tell you.
After lunch we went to the Anne Frank Museum. If you ask just about any person in the world if they know about Anne Frank, and they will say yes. She is the voice of so many people that lived during the horrific times preceding world war two. It was an amazing tour, as it has a modern museum section, where you see the diary itself, pages, notebooks, and other personal effects of the Frank family. Then they would show you a video, where you would find out things that were going on outside of the safe house. Then you would actually get to go inside. See the exact places where Anne and her family walked, and lived for nearly three years. It was harrowing, to say the least.
We then returned to the airport, where we met up with Haley, James, Alyssa, and Amanda. They were all in good spirits, for the most part. We returned to the city, while James held down the fort in the airport, and tried to deal with the Delta people, who apparently were trying not to claim any fault for overbooking the flights. I felt like that was very foolish of them, because we clearly had receipts for each and every ticket purchased, there and back again. I don't know what they were trying to do, but James figured it out.
After having some fun in the touristy (and expensive!) areas of Amsterdam, we met back at the airport at around 2 in the morning. At this point, I hadn't showered in 24 hours. I was tired and gross. So I took a nap. Thankfully, we stayed up so late in Amsterdam and the airport that I slept for six straight hours on the plane from there to Detroit. I was happy, because that pretty much eliminated my jet lag.
After Detroit's landing, there isn't much else to say. I am back home. I had an absolutely amazing experience all throughout Germany, Italy, and Amsterdam. Honestly, I am glad we didn't spend too much time in France. I know I am basing this on only the few airport members that I met in France, but they were pretty snobbish. I don't know why. Yes, we were late, but the inside scoop is that they are in the customer service industry, if you can't deal with problematic customers, find a new job, okay?
I may post more on this blog, maybe if I remember stories that might need to be shared, but overall I feel happy that I was able to keep the rest of you that maybe couldn't make this particular trip informed as to what we had done, were doing, etc. Honestly, I had fun with this project, and I hope that by my words you also had some entertainment. I hope that everyone reading this gets the chance to travel. It is the only way to really understand some of what I have and may talk about in the future.
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