Sylvia's Journal

The video did not work in economy class of the NW plane taking me back to Boston so everyone got a voucher from KLM that was good for all sorts of things: a five minute phone call from Amsterdam to the USA, 2000 frequent flyer miles on KLM or partner airlines or 10 euro off at any of Schiphol’s restaurants or 15 Euro off a tax free purchase on board in addition to 50 euro off a ticket from KLM or NWA. I never knew video was considered that valuable. Something else was not working either which kept us at the gate for nearly two extra hours. That is probably because I text messaged Axel that I would be home soon. Two more messages were sent after that saying that I would be home a little later. What I forgot to include in those messages was that I was on the early morning flight, departing and arriving early in the morning, in a small(er) airplane than the usual wide body ones.

This last plane was empty too; in fact so empty that most passengers could stretch out on three seats. I did not think I needed to sleep after having slept all the way from Dubai to Amsterdam but regretted halfway through the trip that I had not staked out my territory with backpacks and pillows. Those last 8 hours of this 20 hour (in the air) trip were interminable.

Right behind me was a gaggle of teenagers coming back from a trip to Europe, noisily flirting with one another and a bit too peppy for me that early in the morning. One of them was a Moslem girl, wearing the hijaab tightly around her face and hair. In between the giggling and the games, she would occasionally pull out a small booklet with Quran verses, I presumed, to return to God on this holy day.

One of the flight attendant walked around with a Dutch language book in his pocket and after I confirmed that he was indeed learning Dutch we only spoke Dutch together which he managed amazingly well, much like Sita, with a heavy American accent. He said he had been at it for awhile but never got much a chance to practice because these darn Dutch always spoke English back to him. I knew the problem from Tessa’s and Steve’s venture to Holland when all her efforts to practice her Dutch were thwarted by those polyglot Hollanders.

On the row next to me was a Dutch (he)-American (she) couple with a 6 month old baby that did not sleep at all during the entire flight and then fell asleep promptly just before landing. They were on their way to the grandparents in Boston for the holidays. We talked about bilingual kids – their’s will be more Dutch than English because they live in Amsterdam and he is exposed to Dutch speaking children at the crèche which she pronounced like crash. I wondered what her family would think when she talked like that about her child’s crèche/crash. Mom’s Dutch was improving after 6 years in Holland and no longer a secret language; their home language (English) is now speckled with Dutch, much like ours was when the children were small.

When I called Axel at 11:30 AM to tell him I had landed I could tell from his surprised voice that he had not consulted the schedule and assumed he was to pick me up at the usual time, late afternoon; so much for traveling with carry-on luggage to allow for a quick exit from the airport. It took me exactly five minutes from the moment I stepped out of the plane to coming through the doors of the arrival hall after which I waited for Axel to drive from Manchester to Logan; still it was a nice reunion which we celebrated over lunch at Sam and Joe’s in Danvers.

Back home I found our living room empty; its contents divided over our bedroom, my office, the cellar and hallways, which makes everything rather full and crowded. Today the livingroom will be deconstructed to accomodate a new fireplace that will allow us to reduce our heating bill and burn up the old Norwegian maple, taken down earlier this year, without having the heat go up the chimney.

It’s good to be back;the best part of travel.