Sylvia's Journal

At exactly one minute before 5 PM we pulled up at the Hertz return at Frankfurt airport. That saved us a surcharge. We had not expected it would take us most of the day to get from Tilburg to Frankfurt but it did. We did take a break in Cologne for a look at the Dom and a last meal of asparagus and ham in an old beer establishment with plain wooden tables that looked like they are sanded down each night. Axel had a sauerbraten and his last pieces of pork for awhile.

We left from the E hall of the airport, gate 6, while from gate 9 the Ariana flight to Kabul was leaving just minutes before us. Both planes were half full; good for us (once again a whole row) but not good for either of the companies.

Behind me two Afghans who live in Holland with an older Dutch lady in between. The Afghans were switching back and forth between Dutch and Dari; the combination of the two works well for me, I could pretty much follow them.

The Afghans were giving the adventuresome 80-year oma advice about how to prepare her stomach for the land she was about to enter. The wonder medicine is onions, I learned.

We arrived in sunny and chaotic Kabul where it was 11 degrees which felt a whole lot warmer than 11 degrees in Holland. We would have liked to have those 11 degrees during our stay in Holland.

At home we found everyone there: the gardner gardening, the cook cooking and the cleaner hanging out with the guards in the back, plus a few other office gophers to do miscellaneous things. We were greeted like long lost family, in Dari of course.

We will eat asparagus again tonight; the four kilos we brought survived the trip well – they will be good for 2 more meals. Our cook recognized it, but not the white kind. It is called mardjuba here, which is never white and much skinnier, like the ones we grow in Manchester. I think (I hope) that I talked him out of preparing them Afghan style, just didn’t want to take any risk.