Homecoming

On Wednesday, November 22 at around noon, Matt and I arrived in beautiful Newark, New Jersey for the first homecoming for both of us since we arrived in Amsterdam. We had been planning this trip since June, and were very excited to see everyone. And to eat cheeseburgers.

Mr. and Mrs. Sgrizzi definitely made it a comfortable arrival for us, by promptly feeding us chicken wings and eggplant and chicken parm and turning on the big-screen and handing us blankets on the couch. After brief naps, we headed out to Basil's, a nice restaurant in Red Bank, to meet a bunch of our friends for Big Wednesday. It was really great to see everyone, and Ryan (aka Elf) gave us some beautiful pictures he had taken during his visit to see us in Amsterdam. It was also nice having full-size beers to drink, though a bit daunting. The cheeseburgers were delicious, and such a great welcome home! The fact that we had been up for pretty much 24 hours, aside from very brief naps, became apparent at around midnight, so we headed home care of Chauffeur Chima.

We spent Thanksgiving day at the Sgrizzi's , and it was a very fun and food-filled time. It was a good way to stretch our stomachs for the food fest that would become the rest of the week. The next evening we took the train to my parent's house in Long Island.

The weather was spectacular while we were home. On Saturday, it was sunny and about 65 degrees, so Matt and I decided to go for a long walk on the beaches along Dune Road in Westhampton. It was so nice to see the ocean again.

On Sunday we had planned a late lunch with my parents and Matt's parents at the Brazilian Churrascaria Plataforma in NYC. Matt and I hopped on the train on Sunday morning to do some walking around the city, see the tree at Rockerfeller Center, and of course to SHOP! And shop we did - we went on a bona fide shopping spree on 5th Avenue. It's nice earning in euros :-). After we arrived at Plataforma carrying our various shopping bags, we filled up on caipirinhas and meats served on skewers.

The rest of our time at home was spent relaxing and catching up with our families. Six days is definitely too short, but hopefully everyone can make it out here to visit us soon. Next year we hope to make it home for Christmas, but this year we'll be staying at a ski house in the St. Anton resort in the Austrian Alps with some friends.

Vienna

A few weeks ago, my good college bud Stacy came for a brief visit to Amsterdam. Stacy works for an American-German-Dutch publishing company, which means she comes to the Netherlands for work on occasion. So when she had a team meeting in Holland for work last Wednesday, we decided she come early and spend the weekend! Her and my other good friend Liz came to visit back in June and we did the whole Holland thing. So this time, Stacy and I decided to do Vienna.

We had heard some things about Vienna before our arrival: everyone walks around in fur coats, everyone is old, there are some beautiful palaces, and they eat sausages filled with cheese (we actually only heard this last tidbit from Matt). We also knew about the world-famous opera house, so decided our must-do for this trip was to see an opera. About a month before our trip, I see that Madame Butterfly is playing at the opera house the night we arrive in Vienna (Sunday night). This was perfect! A few weeks before our trip, I search the internet to order tickets before the show only to find that the show was sold out! We were so bummed! We tried some contacts, called in some favors, and found that our contacts were lacking and no one actually owed us any favors. We decide then to try going to the opera house as soon as we arrive, maybe swindling some old men and stealing their tickets while they go to the bar to get us champagne and chocolates. Luckily for us (and all the old men at the opera house that night), there was no need for that.

When we arrive at the hotel, our concierge informs us that if we were to arrive at the opera house 30 to 60 minutes before the show is set to begin, we could purchase standing room tickets without a problem. Phew! So by the time we had brought our bags up to our lovely little Viennese hotel room, it was around 3:30 in the afternoon. All we really wanted to do was just relax and get ready for the show at 6, but being in Vienna only until Tuesday afternoon, coupled with the fact that the big palace we wanted to see (the Belvedere) is closed on Mondays, we decided instead to grab a map and our cameras and hop on the tram.

The transportation system in Vienna is very reliable. There is the underground system and the tram (above-ground) system. The tram system is set up in a loop around the city, and our guide book recommended taking the loop around, which we did many times, albeit inadvertently!

Our first stop was touring the Belvedere Palace. Due to time constraints, we only visited the upper palace (the palace is divided into 2 sections), where there was an art gallery with famous works by Gustav Klimt. There were a couple of really magnificent pieces there, including Klimt's The Kiss and The Bride. Unfortunately the outside of the palace was a bit tainted by the construction to the gardens, but it was still majestic.

After touring around the Belvedere for a few hours, we head back to the tram stop so we can get to the hotel and throw on our cocktail dresses for the opera. On our way, we stop to look at some cheesy advertisements with pictures of Sharon Stone. The advertisements were for the souvenir shop across the street, and featured the words ''Sharon Stone's Choice" with pics of the pseudo-star and a short little Greek man. As we start to walk around these signs, I hear some yelling coming from the other side of the street. I turn to look, and lo and behold, it's the little man in the picture motioning for us to come into his store. I grab Stacy and among stifled giggles we start walking (fast) towards the tram stop. But he is undeterred. He follows us and shouts after us and eventually convinces us to go into his Greek restaurant attached to the shop with promises of free coffee. We follow him in, and the restaurant looks pretty legitimate. He quickly hands us 2 glasses of red wine filled to the brim and seats us at his best table. He leaves us alone for a bit, but keeps coming back and asking about our lives and telling us where he's been in the US. Now, Stacy was just getting over an ugly flu, and wine was the last thing she wanted or needed, so she hardly drank hers. And I could not let 2 full glasses of wine go to waste, so I drank mine. Seeing this, our little friend, Nico was his name, says "This one likes wine!" then proceeds to fill my glass to the brim again! He then escorts us into the souvenir shop, hands us postcards and dresses me in various tacky printed scarves. All Stacy could muster when he draped me in a The Kiss screen-printed scarf and looked at her for her approval was, "I think it looks better on Sharon Stone.'' Thanks, Stacy. We finally manage to tear ourselves away under the false premise that we would return later that evening. I really hated having to lie to Nico. At first we really considered coming back to eat b/c the food looked so good. But in the end, he was just too annoying.

By the time we arrived back at our hotel, we were much later than we had planned. It was 6:20 and we still had to get dressed. We called the cab and in record time were ready to be driven to the opera house. The cabbie was chatting us up, enough so to make Stacy really believe that he was really rooting for us to score some tickets. So I see her hand him a bill as a tip. Now, the smallest euro bill is 5 euros. So once we hop out, I gasp, ''Did you just tip him 5 euros for a 9 euro cab ride?!" and she replies, ''Yes, but I really felt like he was on our side. I thought it would give us good karma.'' And did it ever.

The Vienna opera house is magnificent. It is so ornate but not to the point where it's tacky. It's just very classy. The ceilings are gilded gold, and the chandeliers are pure crystal. After we had walked in, we headed straight to the back to check for the standing room tickets. These were still available for just 2 euros each, but it was really a horrible way to see the show, especially given our lovely outfits. Also, everyone else getting standing room tickets looked positively slovenly. Now, the time being 7:05, I decided to give a quick check at the box office to see if there are any seated tickets available. There were, but only for the 2 most expensive categories. We look at each other and decided, why the heck not, and nodded vigorously at the box office man. He goes on to say, well, the seats are not together. That was a bit of deal breaker, and he could tell that by looking at our faces. "How far apart are they?" I ask. "Let me check something'' he says. He shuffles what look to be tickets paper clipped together and then turns to us again. He says he has 2 tickets together, but they are in category 1. What else, we can only pay cash, ''because it was a cancellation." But, as a token of generosity, he would give them to us for the price of category 2. Due to sheer excitement, we look past the dodginess of the situation and pool together all of our cash, and are short by 80 euros. I can taste these seats now! "I can go to the cash machine if there is one nearby..." I murmur. He just sticks his hand out and counts the money, hands us the tickets and says "Enjoy the show." Score! Stacy earned a 1600% return on her cabbie investment!

Still giddy from our fancy seats, we take the elevator up to we-have-no-idea-where. At the first stop, everyone else gets off, and being as we probably looked a bit confused, the elevator operator asks to see our tickets. Then he makes a strange face. He puts his hand up to stop us from getting off and says, ‘‘you wait.'' Oh no, I think, did we just hand over a wad of cash for fake tickets? Not so. He takes us up another floor, smiles very agreeably and says, ''These are very good seats.'' Heehee!

Needless to say, the seats were phenomenal. Madame Butterfly is in Italian, but our seats (I think all seats actually) had a small screen in front where you could pick a language to translate the songs. Very convenient, as otherwise we would have had no clue as to what was going on. Even if we could speak Italian, the songs were sung so strangely and...well, opera-y...that there was no deciphering. During intermission, we ran out to the nearest cash machine to replenish our wallets. We run back with 15 minutes to kill, and grab champagne and chocolates from the bar and look out over the city of Vienna from the Opera House balcony. We felt to stylish we nearly had to pinch ourselves. After the show, we look for a cafe nearby the opera house, but the city is dead. The population of Vienna is mostly elderly people, and they don't have the siesta-provided energy surge of the Spanish oldies, so they are most definitely home at this hour (about 10:30). We then decide to grab some pizza slices and eat at our hotel.

The next morning we wake up early and go to the Schloss Schonbrunn. The Schonbrunn Palace was built by the royal Habsburg family between 1696 and 1712, and has 1,441 rooms. We took a tour of the 40 rooms that are open to visitors. This palace is also famous for the performance that then six-year old Mozart gave to the Empress Maria Theresa. The palace rooms are magnificent, designed in the white-and-gold Rococo style, with tall windows, crystal mirrors and chandeliers. The palace grounds have a hedge maze, a botanical garden, reproduction Roman ruins and the world's oldest zoo. We spent the afternoon in shopping and walking around downtown Vienna. The city is absolutely beautiful, and the weather was perfect. Vienna is famous for its pastries and its cafe culture, so we stopped in at Cafe Demel, one of Vienna's most well-known pastry shops. We had apple strudels and lattes, a most rewarding break from shopping!

True to the promise I made Matt, I stop at a kiosk on the way back to our hotel and get myself a kaiserkraner. A kaiserkraner is a big sausage injected with liquid cheese. Yes. To maximize my kaiserkraner experience, I get a Viennese beer to wash it down with. Stacy was still not feeling 100%, and she had the better sense to not risk her improving health by consuming pure grease contained in fried skin. I must say, the beer and the sausage, in and of themselves, were not very good. But the combination was quite striking, and I began to enjoy this unlikely snack! It felt like a brick in my stomach for a few hours though.

Later that evening, we head out for a typical Viennese meal, only to find that the restaurant our hotel recommended was full, on a Monday night! We find another place, and are reminiscing over our crazy college days when the two guys at the table next to us lean over and ask us if we're American. They were Americans doing a mini-tour of Europe, and ironically enough, they were from Maryland! One of them even went to Towson, Loyola's rival school in Baltimore. It really is a small world. After dinner, we head out to a bar with our new American friends, and drink beers out of mugs.
I am well aware that my luck in Vienna was nearly 100% contributed by Stacy.

“Have you ever been to an opera in Vienna?” you ask? Yes, I have.

Oktoberfest

'Thais & Matt - Oktoberfest in Munich - September 2006

Oktoberfest

I do realize that it has been over a month since the last blog, and my apologies for that. Things have really started to pick up around here. Matt and I are finally finding our place in Amsterdam. With Matt playing rugby and taking Dutch lessons and my writing workshop and book club and various other disturbances, we don't have much down time anymore. But I promise to make a better effort.

Nevertheless, the blog you have all been waiting for..

Oktoberfest - Munich, Germany.
First, some history: The first Oktoberfest was held in the year 1810 in honor of the Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig’s marriage to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. The festivities began on October 12, 1810 and ended on October 17th. In the following years, the celebrations were repeated and, later, the festival was prolonged and moved forward into September.By moving the festivities up, it allowed for better weather conditions. Because the September nights were warmer, the visitors were able to enjoy the gardens outside the tents. Thus it has become the Oktoberfest of today which we all know and love.
The Bavarians regard Oktoberfest as the fifth season. There is autumn, winter, spring, summer, then Oktoberfest. And as any other proper season, Oktoberfest commands its own attire. This picture was taken around midnight on Thursday night, as Matt and I boarded the metro from Munich airport to our hotel. What a welcome! We giggled and took some incognito shots of these fine ladies, all the while reminding ourselves that soon enough, we will be in their beer-stained shoes.

Being that we experienced some delays, we didn't get to our hotel until past midnight, and we were beat. The next morning we wake up to a beautiful German day. We head out to the city center, grab some sausages and tour around briefly before going to the LaSalle office at 1pm. We met some of Matt's coworkers, who were all very friendly and excited. At 2pm sharp, we are at the Hobrauhaus tent. Since LaSalle had made reservations for us, we got in with no trouble. We then were promptly handed 1-liter beer steins. I have never seen beers this big. For those that can't drink a liter of beer at one time, or for those who just need a break from doing so, there is the option of the half beer- half lemonade stein. These look just like beer, so no one is the wiser. They also provide an oft-needed jolt of sugar to keep you awake.

Although we were in that same tent for over 9 hours, time really just flies by in there. We drank liter beers (several of them), we ate half chickens, we danced to stupid songs (notably that dumb West Virigina country roads song), tried our hands at the German language, and met some great people. It was an experience like no other. Then the beer tent closed at 11:30pm and we were forced to leave.

We don't really recall our walk to the subway; we pretty much just followed the mass of people for about a mile. Somehow, we find our way back to our hotel. The next morning my phone starts beeping and ringing around 8am. I was NOT down with that. After a few hours of being annoyed by its incessant beeping but being emotionally unable to leave the bed, I get up to dig around for my phone. I then remember that at some point the night before, one of Matt's collegues from the Munich office had insisted on dancing on the table (even though it's not allowed and the beer maidens kept yelling at her to get down). Inevitably she managed to kick over a beer stein and have a 1/2 liter of beer dump right into my lap and into my purse. Luckily, my phone still worked (I was reconsidering the ''luckily'' at that time though). Anyway, it was my 2 coworkers from Amsterdam calling to get us up to meet them at the fairgrounds. Ugh. More drinking was about the last thing we wanted to do. Nevertheless, we try to get it together, and at around 12:30, we head back to Matt has dubbed ''the house of pain.'' We arrive at the fairgrounds at 1pm, and try to find the tent our friends are in. Once we see it, we see that there is a line at every possible entry/exit to this place. We knew this was the most popular tent, so we decide to try another one, only to find that there are lines to get in everywhere. These people here (in the picture) are waiting on line to get into a tent, and they've been waiting for 4 hours. Those people on the grassy area are not just hanging out, enjoying the nice weather; most of them are passed out drunk. All this going on amongst the little German kids getting pony rides and eating giant cookies. It was quite a bizzare sight. Matt and I continued to stroll around, checking for tents without a line of people snaking out of it, but nothing. We decide to get some beers and sausages. But the kicker of this tent business, is that no beer is sold anywhere else on the fairgrounds! We decide to go back to the city center and find a beer garden there.

Funny interlude: We grab some fries on the way out of the fairgrounds. We reach the metro station, but Matt wants to enjoy his fries outside in the nice weather before we head down to the subway. So we are both standing off to the side, when all of a sudden a unfathomable number of Japanese tourists crowd us. Here we were, in Munich for Oktoberfest, and it was Japanese for as far as our eyes could see (not very far). This non-event has come to be called the Asian invasion. I couldn't let this oddity slip by without a picture. Any other group of tourists would have found it curious to see someone take a picture of another person eating french fries outside the metro station while surrounded by said tourist and all his friends, and perhaps even given me a dirty look for doing so. But being that they were Japanese and love to take ridiculous pictures, they didn't even blink an eye at it. Some even smiled for the camera.

Once we get down to the subway, we quite randomly run into 2 guys Matt knows - one who now works at the LaSalle office in Munich and went to Loyola, and the other his friend. They had also given up on the beer tent idea, and were going back to the city center to buy some leiderhosen and then try a beer garden. It really is true that if you are a guy and not wearing leiderhosen at Oktoberfest, it almost feels like you are missing out on something. With girls it's a bit different, because you just feel bad for these poor women in big, ugly, uncomfortable dresses. But leiderhosen are the perfect beer-drinking attire. Also, the whole costume idea is a funny one. Somehow, dressing up in a silly outfit makes you feel like you are free to behave as stupidly as possible, and yet, still feel ok with yourself the next day. Almost as if the costume excuses you, and just because you weren't dressed like yourself, in reality it wasn't you at all. Like, the costume made you do it, kind of thing.

Saturday night was rather mellow. At around 8pm we head to the real Hofbrauhaus beer hall downtown. This beer hall has some history, since it is where Hitler first began giving his speeches which got him into power. You can still see the swastikas on the ceiling, whose black paint has since been covered up with the blue and white checkers of the Bavarian flag. The beer tents are set up to look like the beer halls, which have rows and rows of picnic tables. To sit down, you just find a free spot to squeeze into. Usually people are very friendly about letting you squeeze in with them. We ended up sitting across from an American couple from California. Also at our table were a German couple, a German father and son and several older guys in atypical costumes. They may have been in some kind of band, but since they didn't speak a word of English, we can't be sure. That didn't stop them from flirting though.

Every 30 minutes or so at a beer hall or beer tent, they play a little dity where everyone at the table has to cheers (''prost!'' is cheers in german). It should be noted that the clinging of 1 liter beer steins is not as dainty as clinging wine glasses. We were a bit worried that at some point we would smash our beers so hard that they would shatter (I would come to find out later that this actually happened to my coworker that weekend). But it really is a great way to meet the people around you.

It didn't take too many liters to get us down Saturday night. Worse yet, by the time Hofbrauhaus closed, there were very little places still serving food. Though we could have gotten food there, we were squeezed into our benches pretty tight, and no one else at our table was eating. So what's the only place open at midnight at every city around the world? Yes, we went to McDonald's. That only added to the general unhealthiness of our trip. Filled with beer and grease, we troll back to the subway and back to our hotel. And to make it all come together, we (or rather, just Matt) became like the ladies on the metro on Thursday night.


Overall, our experience in Bavaria was a fantastic one. Munich is a beautiful city with a great subway system. The beers were tasty. The weather was great. Oktoberfest is definetely an experience that can't be missed. We'll definetely go back . And we recommend any of our friends and family to join us. Prost!

Back from Spain!

So we're back from our 10-day tour of Andalucia.We are tan, relaxed, and happy to be home. We couldn't have asked for better weather in Spain. Everyday was beautifully sunny, around 35 Celsius, and every evening was clear and cool. Amsterdam, however, is not very nice at the moment.

We had many adventures along the way, beginning with our arrival in Malaga airport and our 2 hr attempt at trying to get our rental car. The Spainish are in no rush to do anything except get home for their siesta (as was evidenced by the even more aggressive driving at around 3pm). Matt wasted no time damaging our car as we hit the wall in the garage, and then we were on our way! Luckily for us, we had Sally helping us again (Sally is the name given by Mrs. Sgrizzi to the GPS in the rental car we got when we drove to Belgium and France. We thought this name worked quite well!) so we found our way to Sanluca de Barrameda, our first destination, quite easily!

We spent most of our days in Sanlucar on the beach at the mouth of the Rio Guadalquivir. Matt was impressed with what he deemed to be the "legitemacy" of the town, meaning it was all very Spanish. Very little English was spoken by the inhabitants, mostly none at all, so I really had to work on my Spanish. I think I did ok. Especially when it came to taking Matt to Urgencias (E.R.) when the cut on his leg became infected and very scary looking. I just remember sitting in the doctor's office, and the doctor coming in all smug and saying ''que paso el'', meaning what happened to him, and i said ''no se'' (dunno). I tried to explain that it just got worse with time, and as the doctor went back to the room where matt was apparently being worked on, i heard some screams for help as the door swung shut. Now it was my turn to ask ''que paso el''! We attempted to tour a bodega where they make manzanilla, a special wine made only in this region, but unaware that we needed to make reservations for a wine tour (how crazy is that) we were shunned. But the people there didn't speak english anyway, so that probably wouldn't have been quite boring for us. To make up for our rejection, we went to a bar on the beach to try this infamous manzanilla, and it was terrible! So we weren't too bummed about it. Our last day at the beach in Sanlucar was marked by a 7pm horse race on the beach. Very cool.

On our way to our next destination, Vejer de la Frontera, we stopped over at Playa de la Barorosa. This was a Sunday, so the beach was absolutely packed! It was really a beautiful beach, and this is where Matt and I got our Spiderman paddles for beach tennis. Vejer de la Frontera was one of the more beautiful places we've ever seen. A small town atop a mountain, it is very secluded, very Spanish, and very quiet. We took a hike one day through a sketchy forest path to Santa Lucia to see the ancient ruins of a Roman aqueduct. Vejer is also where we tried our first Spanish sangria, which was actually Tinto de Verano (sangrias are for tourists, the Spanish drink Tinto de Verano, which is red wine mixed with either sprite or lemon soda water and sugar with orange slices). We were hooked from that moment on.

Next we were on our way to Tarifa. As was our custom during this week, we stopped by a beach along the way. This particular beach was on the Canos de la Meca, on the Trafalgar Bay. Along with our spiderman paddles, we brought a prepacked picnic cooler. 30 euros worth of pure deliciousness. What we hadn't planned on however, was the loss of appetite we would experience from the crowd of nudists congregating around our beach towells. You see, Trafalgar Bay is teeming with gypsies. Selling their wares, braiding hair, and yes, nude sunbathing. We dug our noses into our books and our couscous, got a few beers, and got through it. Then we hit the road.


Tarifa in the most southern point on the Spanish coast, and is very, very windy. From here is where we took our day trip to Gibraltar. Gibraltar is a Brittish territory, so technically not part of the country of Spain. Gibraltar has had a very violent history, since this is the legendary land of Hercules, the legend stating that he pulled apart the towers between the lands of Spain and Africa. Spain is still a bit peeved that the U.K. still has not returned the land, which was awarded to the Brittish by a French king of Spain several hundred years ago, on the condition that hey, just give it back when you're done with it. In turn the Spanish got a small region in Florida, including St. Augustine, which spain then subsequently lost to the Americans. Enough of the history lesson: aside from all this, Gibraltar is also the only land in Europe with free roaming apes. As we made our way up the rock, the apes made themselves quite the force to be reckoned with, and as you can see, one even jumped on Matt's head (having been lured by a peanut - not Matt's peanut-head, but the actual pea-nut). Our tour guide had made up family names for the monkeys since he knows them so well. This particular ape is of the Simpson family. The apes have no natural predators on the rock, so Gibraltar is experiencing a bit of a population problem with them. Enter the tourists: galavanting around with our ice cream cones, Diet Colas and Twix bars, the monkeys don't miss an opportunity. In fact, their successful thievery of sugary sweets have led to yet a different type of natural predator: cholestorol. High blood pressure and diabetes are the only things controlling the overpopulation of these species. Ha, and they're not even American! Take that, Europe!

Also in Tarifa, we took a brief drive into Bolonia. In Bolonia are the ruins of an ancient Roman salting village, Baelo Claudia. These were some amazing ruins. From one vantage point, you could take in the ruins, the mountains, the rural farms and cattle, the sandy beach and the ocean. Absolutely beautiful. We also visited the beach in Bolonia, and took a walk up to the enormous sand dunes. We headed back to our hotel around 7 pm and had dinner (at our hotel restaurant that served traditional Andanlucain cuisine) to celebrate our last night in the Costa de la Luz. The next day we start our drive back to Malaga. Instead of a straight trip (about 2 hrs), we decided to stop over in Marbella for a taste of the Mediterranean. All the beaches we had visited during this trip had up until that point been on the Atlantic ocean. Plus, I hear Beyonce and Jay-Z like to vacation there, so it must be at least glamorous enough for rappers. Well, maybe so, but not glamourous enough for these two primadonnas here. Playas de Marbella was perhaps the most disappointing beach I've been to. The sand was dark and rough, the ocean dirty and and the shore had big rocks that cut your feet. And the people were no Gwyneth Paltrow. We left right away to try somewhere else. Anyplace had to be better! We find ourselves on a coastal highway on the way to Malaga, and stop off at Arroyo de la Miel, which translates to Stream of Honey, so it has to be pretty, right? No. The place was a virtual Brittish tourist trap. We decide to hang on the beach for a few hours, then continue our drive to Malaga. Our hotel in Malaga had a swimming pool, and Matt got to show off his canonballs. And I beat him in another swim race. Well, we didn't race, but if we had I would have definetely won.

For our last night in Spain, we drive into the downtown area of Malaga. We were confronted with throngs of drunks and dirty stinky streets. We stop at a square for some Tinto de Veranos, and find out from our waiter that it was Malaga Carnival, and people came downtown to party and dance and drink until around 8pm. Then everyone goes home and goes back out at midnight into the outskirts of the city to the discoteques. Sorry we missed that!

The next day we make our sad return to the Malaga airport. Again, the Spanish are in no rush. They let us go for the scratch on the rental, which was good, since we got a little worried when the guy actually noticed. After a long 11 hours of traveling, we get home to Amsterdam to cold and rainy weather. Ah, it's good to be home. Luckily, Matt's baggage also made it, and we were quite glad about that. We celebrated with some macaroni and cheese.