Well, I am emailing my “update” this time from Europe… my first European Update, just call me “the globetrotter”. Let’s get on with the update shall we!
I am over in The Netherlands on business, which isn’t a bad little gig. It could be worse, I could be Oklahoma on business, or even worse, South Dakota! I have been here almost a week and going to be heading home to Dallas on Saturday. That is a flight I am not looking forward to. We get here on Tuesday morning and there is no way you can go to work after that beat down of a flight so I go get something to eat, check into the hotel, get on the computer for a bit and decide to jump in the shower…
I thought this is a good idea, jump in the shower, get clean, dry my hair and go to bed… nice and easy. Well, I get my little PJ’s laid out in the bathroom, disrobe and put my clothes next to my PJ’s, grab all of my shower stuff (trust me there is a ton of it) and get in the shower. I turn the shower on and one half of the shower head becomes dislodged and there is water shooting out of the shower and hitting the mirror at full force. The bathroom has turned into a swamp, my clothes, my PJ’s, my toiletries are all soaked, everything is wet but me! I cant even believe it. I call down stairs and the housekeeping and maintenance service come up after about 20 minutes to deal with this situation. The housekeeping man asks me if he can take my clothes and dry them and iron them. This sounded good, so I said “Sure”. He took them. The housekeeping man said, “The tub is also broken, but it is good enough to use the shower as long as it isn’t a long shower, but I can fix it tomorrow while you are gone, is that ok?” That sounded good too, I said “Sure”. Two days later, and a few phone calls made on my part, the tub wasn’t fix and my clothes were MIA. I finally had to go downstairs and sit at the front desk before they told me that they don’t know where my clothes are and that they forgot all about fixing the tub. That is strange, I have called several times and every time was told, “We well call housekeeping and maintenance and get that taken care of right now!”. Well, I finally got my clothes and we switched hotels on Friday.
I am now staying at a Bilderberg hotel, and it is wonderful. I was skeptical, because the last time I was here I stayed at this chain and it wasn’t good, but this hotel is wonderful. It is so charming and set off in the woods. There is a large pond in the court yard that my room overlooks, walking trails into the woods, and even a sheep farm next door on the opposite side of the hotel. It is as charming as you could imagine. If I was hear for a romantic getaway it would be perfect… the room is small, like all European hotels, with simply a double bed in the middle of the room, but the walls are white, with yellow striping, and trimmed in mint green. The carpet is green and the bed linens are all white. There is a balcony and the doors leading to it are floor to ceiling, and the view beyond is amazing. They don’t have robes here, but if they did I would be sitting out there in one, drinking my coffee and looking at the morning paper. Notice I said looking, because the morning paper is in Dutch. I don’t know Dutch, and I have to tell you, it is NOT a language that is easy. Most of the time it just sounds like these guys are clearing their throats or sneezing… bless you!
We went to Cologne on Saturday. I didn’t know that I was going to be in Europe during the World Cup, didn’t know that the World Cup was that big of a deal, didn’t know that it was hosted in Germany, but all of this made for an interesting trip. I was awake at 5am and we headed out around 6am by car bound for Germany…
Suresh and I took a tour bus, which took you around the city and explained the history of Cologne. The Germans do not pronounce it Cologne, the way we do. So it was interesting to try and just pick up on everything this lady was trying to tell us. Because German was her native tongue, and English I think was something she picked up the day before. But we loved the tour and all the sites, and then we settled in on the grass in the afternoon to drink a few beers and watch some of the football. There were TV’s (huge stadium screens) set up every where to enjoy the matches. So we set out on the lawn, ordered some beers, I took my shoes off to squish my toes in the grass, and started to really soak it all in. The Rhine was directly behind me, my beer was ice cold, the weather was 80 degrees, and the wind was soft on my face. Could it get any better? Well, it did. We started chatting with some of the Czech fans, and it was a complete blast. They had driven all night to come be with their team, and they didn’t even have tickets, they just wanted to be in the city and watch the match on TV there! How cool is that? I love the aggies, but I don’t know if I would drive all night to sit in another country (or state for that matter) to watch the game on TV. But these guys would, and did! We watched most of the game with them, but wanted to get out of there before the match was over. A) we had a long drive ahead of us. B) the match was tied C) I felt as if the Czech team lost, there were about 500,000 drunk fans, that could have torn that city apart like an earthquake, and I didn’t want to be there for that. So we left. And the Czech team lost to Ghana.
We made it home around midnight and got back up at 5am to head to Brussells. If you have never been to Brussells, you should go! It is gorgeous. The food is amazing, the sites are spectacular, and the people are phenomenal. We spent most of the day in Brussells, and then headed to Brugge in Belgium at the suggestion of our hotel deskman. He said it is a quaint little town that is virtually untouched for hundreds of years. And he was right. It was gorgeous, and so wonderful. They have horse carriage rides, that are awesome… and I would go do that again! We didn’t get home again until well after midnight and then the work week began. I guess we should do some work… speaking of, better get back to it!
Peace, love, and hotels that don’t lose your clothes!
Martha
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