The Netheregions (Part 1): The Journey

With 5 days of freedom upon us, and some of our favourite people on this side of the Atlantic, Alan and I planned a speedy, and excitement filled trip to Holland to stay with Danielle and Bryan. Danielle is in month 3 of a 5 month (uber-prestigious) law internship with the Yugoslavian War Crimes Tribunal, in Den Haag, or The Hague. Luckily the U.N. gave them the day off for Bayram, so we got to spend three full days with both of them before Danielle had to head back to work.

So.  Back to the journey.  Our plan seemed easy enough:  We had managed to book a flight straight from Antalya to Amterdam (woohoo!) which would cut out the Istanbul leg all together. Danielle had sent us an amazingly long and thorough checklist, and Bryan had sent very clear instructions on how to get to their house from the airport. What could go wrong?  Well, a few things...

1.  TURKEY! Grrr Turkey and their need to do EVERYTHING last minute! Our residence visas expired the day before we left on our trip.  You can't leave or re-enter with expired visas.  We knew this. So months ago we started pestering our school about resubmitting. The pestering continued until in a panic we were rushed to the police station to fill out our paper work at 3:30 on THE DAY OF EXPIRATION! Which meant rushing back to the police station twice on the day of our flight to finalize and pick up our visas.  But we made it.

2.  Time differences.... We got these weird tickets from the travel-agent that only said departure time and duration of flight, no arrival time.  So we did the math.  Wrong.  And arrived over an hour earlier that anticipated.  That's OK. We'll just be early.

3.  Crazy street names and taxi drivers with no GPS...  When the train that took us from Amsterdam to Den Haag arrived, we were so confident.  All we have to do is give this guy our super clear directions from Bryan.  Hmmm.... Not so easy. He had no idea where this street name with a million letters, and far too many vowels was.  So he asked a bunch of buddies, and we were on our way.  Once we got there he did a few u-turns, and then pulled into a parking lot and said "This is it."  Naive and excited Erin: "Okie-doke! Super, I'm so happy... la-di-dah!"  Wise and suspicious Alan: "Wait.  This isn't the right street name."  Cab driver:  "Go down that way. It's the next street, I can't drive you there."  Erin: "Yippee!" Alan: "The next street?  Are you sure?" Lying cab driver: "Yes."  So we go.  And he was wrong.  And now we are LOST in some residential neighborhood with no working phone, and no computers AT 4:00 AM! So we walk to the only open place we can find, and ask the guy working there if he can help.  He has no idea where this street is (panic), but he checks a map.  Luckily it was just a few blocks down.  Phew.

Not their door, or their cat, but probably the house of one of the neighbors whose sleep we ruined. Also, NOT the amount of sunshine on us when we arrived.  Cus that was zero.

4.  Miscommunications and heavy sleepers...  The night before we flew out, Danielle was getting all pushy with questions.  She needed so many details that I was too lazy to get up and find.  Like when we would be arriving and such.  Geeze.  I thought Alan had already sent her our itinerary (he's usually responsible like that), so I pretty much told her to mind her own business. Ha. So she figured we would be there around 8 based on the completely inaccurate and half-assed info I gave her.  Well 8 is close to 4.  Kind of.  So when we arrived at their house 4 hours early and started knocking, I pretty much only had myself to blame for them sleeping right through it.  30 minutes of knocking and light rain later, a very groggy Bryan answered the door. B: "Why are you so early?"  E and A: "Woohoo! Day-o-fun! Day-o-fun!"

And so it began...

Check back tomorrow, when we explore Amsterdam.