Two Beers and a Pretzel

So on Friday I decided to recover from 4 days of walking tours and museums.  I slept in, went to lunch with Ingrid and some of her co-workers, posted the Belgium update on the blog. I looked into going to Berlin, but it was going to be cold, so I decided on Madrid (warm and cheaper). Then Ingrid got off work and we went out on the town.

First we stopped by her home town and had dinner with her parents.

I had a great time chatting with her parents.  Her dad is a big whiskey and cigar aficionado (even after his recent heart attack), and he likes rowing and old cars, and they drove route 66 a few years ago, so we had plenty to talk about.  Her dad recommended Barcelona over Madrid, so I decided to book that instead.

After a great meal, we went back to Dordrecht.  I booked Barcelona,  and we caught the train to Breda – the local college party town.  We had a 30 minute wait in the station, so we made some goofy videos on my camera to entertain ourselves.  I’ll post a few when I get them edited…  In Breda we met a bunch of Ingrid’s friends and former co-corkers at her previous job.  Went dancing and drinking until about 4:30 AM.

When we got to the train station around 5 AM, the tracks were being maintained on our planned route, and the next train wasn’t until 7:30 AM.  So we stayed at one of her friends houses (the guy on the right) for a few hours.  I was exceptionally tired with a light hangover.

Around 9 AM we caught a train back to Dordrecht.  Ingrid fell asleep.  I had breakfast and had to get ready for my 1:40 PM flight to Barcelona.  The train is usually 45 minutes between Dordrecht and the airport, so I left at 11:00 to catch the 11:12 inter-city.  NOPE!  The work on the tracks had screwed everything up.  It took me 2 and a half hours to get to the airport – just as they closed the gate on my non-refundable $220 flight.  I spent an hour or so unsuccessfully trying to get a refund on the airport taxes, then another 2.5 hours to get back to Dordrecht – where I fell promptly asleep.

About 2 hours later Ingrid woke me up and said that since her apartment has open access to the doctors office where she works, part of her ‘rental’ agreement was that friends are not allowed to stay there without her… and she still had plans to go out drinking and crash at her friend’s house.  She found a nearby hostel for me.  Decent enough, $30 and clean. No hot water in my shower – that kinda sucked.

Literally, the only good thing about that day was that my iPod battery lasted exactly long enough for me to get back to Ingrid’s place.  I seriously thought about and looked into catching the next plane home – but it was a $250 change fee and $600 fare difference.  Ouch!!

Despite a snoring Frenchman in my room (earplugs are awsome), I got about 12 great hours of sleep and feel pretty good today.  Ingrid’s having more friends over to chill out today – since she was planning on me being away.  I’ll probably check the train schedules and see when the track maintenance will be done – and plan my remaining day-trips in Holland and possibly visiting Kirsten in Cologne, Germany.  We’ll see…