Sylvia's Journal

Axel later told me I travelled on the most travelled day of the American year, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Somehow I didn’t think that many people travelled between Europe and the US at thanksgiving time with a logic that is probably too European: Americans wouldn’t want to go travel to a place without this most sacred of American holidays, and why would people who don’t have this tradition go in the other direction? Of course I was only thinking about the Boston-Amsterdam flight and not about the other 100s of domestic Delta flights. We could have known.

While standing in line I met a colleague who was on her way to Southern Africa and Tanzania. She was accompanied as far as officialdom let them, by her 2 year old daughter and husband. I remembered those days, with Tessa crying hard until I was out of sight and then later calling home and that she had entirely forgotten the unpleasantness of parting, and maybe even me.

Every seat in the plane was filled, including B-class, so no chance in the world that I might have been pushed forward. That too triggered a memory of those days when I had a friend checking in on the Boston side and on the Amsterdam side, both employees of Northwest. It worked most of the time.

In Amsterdam I discovered that my phone was locked and wouldn’t let me use my Dutch simcard. I hope that my interactions with a nice T-Mobile lady will produce the coveted unlocking code. In the meantime people have to call me in the US, even though I am here, and I am piling more charges on top of the Japan charges. T-Mobile did good by me when I bought a smart phone. I could have known.