At home -- No Adventures

Sometimes no adventures is a very good thing. My shuttle ride, which picked me up at 5:30 AM Central Europe time yesterday, got me to the Budapest airport in plenty of time. Enough time so I could easily handle the paperwork of paying for a second bag! When I bought my ticket one could take two bags on an international flight, but American airlines do not do a very good job of living up to the contracts they make with passengers.

The flight to Amsterdam left a bit late, but we arrived no more than 5 minutes late. I found the computer to check in for my flight to the states and found the flight was leaving about 15 minutes earlier than what I had on my paperwork for the flight. So I took the hike through the Amsterdam airport -- much easier than the walk I did in the Paris airport in January -- and got to my next flight in plenty of time.

The gate was very crowded and as people began to board, I thought, "That looks like Tari." It wasn't until I saw a man that looked like Harry that I realized one of my Fulbright colleagues was on the same flight. I knew they had gone home in June, but then were returning to Sweden. I don't want to even try to calculate the odds of our being on the same flight back to the States, particularly since they wanted to go to Chicago , but got routed on the Minnesota bound flight instead.

My daughter found me at the airport and got me back to my apartment. I crashed out to sleep probably by 8 PM Minnesota, which would be 4 AM Central Europe time, so I was on the go for about 24 hours.

I woke up at 3:00 AM or so, and decided to just get moving. The unpacking is all done, the laundry is all done, and most everything is put away. It surely seemed strange to be pulling the winter clothes out of the suitcase. I had packed them about 2 months ago, and not thought about those clothes again.

The TV is back on, and the little problem I had with my cell phone is solved. The computer can't connect to the wireless in my apartment, but I need a nap before I can begin to solve that problem. Thank heavens for the business center in my apartment building. Monday is the first that I'm going to tackle whatever it takes to start the car.

Later today I'm getting some groceries delivered so I'll be able to eat! There is no grocery store within walkable distance. I'm certainly back to the US car society.

My only task for the day is to take a walk to the public library and get myself some books for the next few days of setting the biological clock back to Minnesota time.