No trip photos! Good air travel days are unspectacular, and this one certainly was both! We got up around 7 and Mark had tea and a yogurt with granola at the hostel café that’s open 24/7, while I took a little walk and discovered a little more of the part cute / part ultra modern neighborhood in the “Noord” (North of the Ij harbor) part of the city–one part the Eye and ambitious high-rises, now almost all residential or hotels, and part older art/community spaces, 1- and 2-story apartment buildings, and even some houseboats on a side canal, all with generous green space. The “Clink Noord” hostel building, it turns out, used to be half of a huge office and laboratory complex that was built by Shell in the 1920s–hence the impressive main staircase, complete with stained-glass windows, that had made us guess this used to be part of a school. We were only slightly off! The other half of the building is art space for studios and also a school of dance, partly under the auspices of Amsterdam University.
Once we had checked out, we took the ferry back to the train station (less than 5 minutes), the train to the airport (18 minutes), and then got through the very long but fast-moving security line in less than an hour. We were at our gate well before 10, boarded shortly after 11, and left for our 8+ hour flight punctually at noon. Because it was a daytime flight, neither one of us slept, and I watched a whole bunch of movies that Mark would not enjoy: The moving documentary about queer Colorado poet Andrea Gibson’s last year of life; “Hamnet” (which really impressed me, even more than I thought it would); a somewhat blah rock documentary about the early years of Counting Crows, a so-so animated movie about Marcel Pagnol, and a cute short called “Friend of Dorothy” that was remarkable mostly for starring Miriam Margolyes, so I could see that she hasn’t aged since I last saw her more than 10 years ago at the Dickens Universe. Lots of memories of the great stories she told (and some fun Dickens-related performances she gave) when she regularly came to Santa Cruz for the Universe!
We arrived on time in Chicago, even though we had to wait for emergency medical personnel to help a passenger off the plane who had a medical issue during the flight. She was conscious and complaining of pain in her leg when they were putting her on a stretcher–I hope she was ok! We then made our way to the gate for Lincoln (through security one more time) and sat there for a long time since our layover was over 4 hours. It was strange to hear almost exclusively English all around after many weeks in multi-lingual environments. We had a long taxi session on the tarmac in Chicago that almost drove me to distraction, because I was already so tired of airplanes, but eventually got to Lincoln, where Kai and Christine picked us up, and then also brought us yogurt and lemon curd so that on Thursday morning, Mark’s day can start in an orderly fashion. We said good-bye to our cat sitter, who had waited to welcome us home, and then crashed pretty soon after some basic unpacking. The flights days with the extra 7 hours are always hard!
But: What a wonderful trip it’s been! The perfect mix of friend time in familiar spaces where we can relax and catch up, and exploration time for new things, both on our own and with friends and family. In the Harz / Eichsfeld region, in Vienna, and in Prague we saw and learned much that was new, but the visits to the Atlantic and the Baltic and even the walk around Osnabrück and Hamburg never get old. I am so happy that we got to spend a day on each of the German shores! And it was the amarena cherry on top of a this delicious multi-flavor gelato concoction to wrap this up with a get-together for all our Northern German friends and family, who all know and love each other and had a truly wonderful time. Now we have to flip the switch and get used to life and work at home after 6 weeks away. I know we are both looking forward to this to some extent, but I also have to admit that leaving “my Germans” behind tugs at my heart strings a bit more every year.
At the end of each trip, we’ve tried to get into the habit of taking notes on things we should have taken and didn’t, and on things we took but which could have stayed home. (Although we haven’t quite gotten into the habit of looking back and reading those to learn from them!) Our two small carry-on suitcases plus our two under-the-seat backpacks worked perfectly yet again, and for day trips we had our two lightweight mini backpacks. This time, I think the only thing we overpacked were socks, and a useless short-sleeve button-down shirt for Mark. I packed three pairs of leggings, and two would have been fine. But we could have done with one more short- and one more long-sleeve shirt for Mark, but that had to do with the somewhat surprising roller-coaster weather pattern this time: it was either quite cold for multiple days or quite hot, so having only a 3-shirt supply for either extreme meant more laundry than we typically do. We did sort of follow our own advice and bought all but a few mini toiletries in Germany, and the note to self is that we now have an almost-full bottle of sunscreen stored at my mom’s! Regarding electronics, it was wise to take both computers (we often had both in use, more than I thought) and perfect to bring only one charger (plus USB-C chargers) and use it for both computers. We also had more iPhone chargers than we needed, but we should have brought a battery pack for our phones (we we compensated by buying one in Prague) and should have had one slightly longer extension cord. Otherwise, our now-unpacked things were pretty wisely packed, and we even had space to bring back the small presents and the three books and multiple brochures and booklets that we collected along the way.
So now we have been reunited with our cats, and it’s a wrap! Antje and Ollie say bye to all faithful 2026 blog readers!
