14 July, 2008

Out of Madrid and into civilization - Day 1 of our summer trip

Beginning of our epic summer journey:
Well, today we left Madrid on our epic summer trip. We flew to
Eindhoven, Netherlands and then trained up to Utrecht. Aside from my
being a little sick and having tremendous pain in my ears during the
descent, the flight to Eindhoven was good.

Also, Andy seems to have, over the last couple of years, developed
this strange habit of almost missing his flights. We get to the
airport in plenty of time, but then once through security it's like
time stops and his impeccable internal clock just goes haywire. We
made it onto the plane - but barely. Anyway, shortly after we landed
in Eindhoven, I saw a St. Bernard. "Fabulous!!! I already like this
country," I thought.

Even better was how easy it was for me to find veggie friendly food
even in the train stations. We trained from Eindhoven to Utrecht.
Our journey was fairly short, but picturesque. Lots of flowers and
gardens everywhere, lots of agriculture, tons of canals and lilly
pads, everything was as green as you can imagine.

The temperature here is similar to San Francisco during the summer.
We went out for an evening walk here to get the lay of the city in
Utrecht and we both needed jackets - I had a light sweater on as
well. The city is very cute and just as you see in pictures. Dinner
time is much more 'normal' here, so we were sitting down to dinner by
7:30. It was a fairly cool, but sunny evening. We enjoyed a
leisurely dinner (again - easy to find veggie foods here) and then
strolled back to our hotel by 9:30. It's strange for us now to eat
dinner out so early, but it is nice. However, it is still fairly
sunny outside, which is a bit strange.

It reminds me of being a little girl and having to go to bed by 8:30
in the summers and it still being light out.

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