HappyDays – Week FortyOne
Mid-Summer Road trips, Galaxy contemplations and parties. Pretty good week in August!
From planes, to trains to automobiles… started writing this on a train to Amsterdam for a two day conference at the University of Amsterdam Law School (on Sept 15). Should be interesting, but boy am I tired. I woke up at 2:30 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Usually when that happens, I can get back to sleep around 5 or so, but no such luck this morning. Today is going to be a looooong day. I foresee lots of caffeine in my future. Aren’t hormonal changes just the best /s.
August 18 – Day 282
Monday was spent working, going up to Amsterdam to prepare the house before my boss and his wife arrived. But I did take a moment to breathe in our garden and noticed this beautiful butterfly landing and feeding on our rather overgrown bush.
August 19 – Day 283
I am not normally a “high maintenance” sort of woman, but I have been getting my nails done since last year with gel and I love it. In preparation for a party the following weekend, I got purple glitter nails done.
August 20 – Day 284
I led a morning walk around MaximaPark with IWCU and was surprised to see these geese with two babies! So very late!! I hope they make it through the fall. You will have to zoom in close, but they are there.
The walk was very pretty and even though I am slammed with work, it was so very good to get out and “touch grass”.
Since we were leaving on a road trip on Thursday and we were low on food, we went to Leidsche Rijn shopping center and had dinner together without having to cook and clean, such a luxury and so we enjoyed sushi and bubble tea in the glorious summer afternoon. There are fountains in the middle of the plaza and there were loads of toddlers screaming and enjoying the water spouts - it was very cute.
Afterwards I went to see a movie with David while Santi went home to get more work done before our road trip. We saw Jurassic Park: Rebirth in 4DX - 3D glasses and the seats move and water sprays at you etc. I must have gotten a bit overwhelmed because walking out of the theater, I tripped going UP the stairs and smacked my mouth but good on the edge of one of the stairs and was quite stunned and bloody. All I could think was that I was supposed to drive 900km the next two days and “g’damn it”. Reminded me of the time as a child (about David’s age) I broke my toe just before a horseback multi-day event and had to cancel. Luckily it wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t pretty either - quite the swollen lip and loose teeth. Looked like what Novocain feels like. Santi came back to the movie theater and we all slowly biked home together.
August 21 – Day 285
I drove to AMS early in the morning to meet my boss and his wife at the house and say “hi & bye!” and get them settled in a bit. Then, I headed back to Utrecht to finished packing up for our trip. Santi had his second and final Dutch exam of the week and then off we went.
We started driving south in the early afternoon. Our overnight goal was Luxembourg, but we stopped for lunch in Liege Belgium and had yummy Poké bowls. The city center was very cute and this Gothic cathedral right downtown gave a perfect impression of a European city - very picturesque.
Santi was a great copilot and mate serbador along the route to keep me going and caffeinated. One day he will learn to drive…
The drive from Liege to Luxembourg was beautiful and we went up and over huge rolling low mountains that reminded me of going over the Grapevine in California, except we were driving through beautiful deep forests of pine trees instead of sparse mountains with sagebrush. The hills/mountains reminded me that I missed them. The normalcy of the flat “lowlands” of the Netherlands was ripped apart in my brain.
We made it to our hotel in Luxembourg, unloaded our stuff and then I went to find a parking spot sort of nearby. The hotel was fine, but it was also really strange. It took “automated” to a whole new level. We were given a code to get in the front door, from the registration desk we picked up our keycards in envelopes with our names on them for the two rooms, and then took the elevator to our rooms to get situated. There was literally no one working at the hotel. It felt really weird. We had all the information we needed, everything was clean and there were no problems, it just felt wrong; a complete lack of human touch and connection. It felt like automation and streamlining costs had been taken to an extreme - good for the corporation that owns and runs the hotel, but not such a great experience for the customer.
August 22 – Day 286
The next morning, we woke up in Luxembourg and the sunrise made for a beautiful start to the day. We had a yummy breakfast at the buffet and I spoke with the two people who were working the breakfast and a bit of the registration desk, but again, everything was very sterile.
Once we checked out and fueled up, we then continued our trip south and entered the French countryside. I wanted to have lunch in Dijon and we made it in time. We spent a couple of hours wandering and eating downtown, it was so very beautiful. We had steak & frites and Orangina - reminded me of my earlier years living in France.
We drove through France and into Switzerland and the countryside changed from open farmlands along the highway to steep and small country side roads. I was super glad that I grew up driving the small backroads of Marin county as this felt so similar and even reminded me of driving both in Sonoma and Mendocino counties.
We arrived at our friends’ house along a beautiful lake in Switzerland in the early evening and it was so great to connect once more after so many years. We had a lovely easy dinner and then I got David to sleep which was fairly quick as he was tired from the long day.
August 23 – Day 287
Saturday was party day! In the morning, I woke up early and took the quiet time to write up an overdue newsletter. We then had breakfast and helped prepare for the party. Lots of people were coming and it was fun to help out. THere was a whole agenda for the day and a lot of it actually happened! There was karaoke signing, cake decorating, piñata smashing, lovely potluck lunch and dinner, dancing (I brought my light up flashy shoes from I bought for hacker camp) and the night ended with astronomy lessons with three University astronomers.
These lovely professors brought high powered telescopes and showed us various stars and planets. I had no idea that there were actually two stars which appear as one in the handle of the “Big dipper” and you can actually see them with the naked eye! It’s the second point of light from the left at the beginning of the handle.
I had brought my large professional camera gear but had forgotten to bring a tripod and they were generous enough to lend me one and helped me with the settings to take a 30 second long exposure of the night sky and capture a LOT of stars and the Milky Way. What a difference between the phone and a real camera…
The universe is big and amazing and humbling and awesome and we are but specks on a tiny blue dot floating around through the void. When you take the “larger view” it makes all the chaos and noise of our time now seem truly insignificant. But then we get bogged down into the details of our daily lives and the insanity of political life these days and it’s hard to remember “our place” in the world and universe because we each are the center of our own universes. I am so glad to have had the privilege to take this photograph to center myself a bit because it’s crazy out there.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.– Macbeth Act 5 Scene 5 Shakespeare
August 24 – Day 288
Sunday was a very chill day - we helped clean up from the party and had a lovely time swimming in the lake and walked back up the hill to have a beautiful view of the lake.
80s Throwback from the karaoke party:
Whow darling, What a week plus. I love to read what you are all up to. The hotel sounded really weird. I don't know if I could ahve tken that. What strip. Did you really swim in the lake too ? MXM