Just another week at the "office." I may be getting too old for this routine.

[DFW]

I should preface this by saying that the weather here has SUCKED all week. It is cold and gray and this far north, the sun doesn't rise until after 8, and it is dark by 5 in the afternoon. The cold rain blows sideways and stings your cheek.

Sit yourself down and stay a while. This will take some time:

Tuesday, I had to get the 6:35 AM plane down to Barcelona. A usually 1:40 hour flight, it was extended by 10 minutes due to some French air traffic controllers participating in the strike currently paralyzing the country. But, OK, the appointments I had weren't too far from each other. I went out to lunch with a decades-long Catalan friend, went shopping at the Boqueria market for friends in Germany and the USA, ran into a Filipina saleswoman from a dried fruit stand who remembered me from a couple of months ago (I'm the only white person that ever spoke to her in Tagalog, it appears), and she spontaneously kissed me on both cheeks (see what a few words of Tagalog will get ya?). I sort of dragged my feet in getting a taxi back out to the airport, as I didn't want to leave (I NEVER want to leave Barcelona). But I finally did, and got stuck in a traffic jam. I started to panic about getting my plane home (last one of the day), but being a German airline AND being Spain, the combination of the two means that all commercial flights are prohibited by law from departing on time, so I made it with twenty minutes to spare. Before the flight from Barcelona back to Düsseldorf left, the pilot warned of wind gusts near Düsseldorf, and that the landing could be bumpy. Yup, it sure could. Like the plane was the shaker and we were the salt. But, I was home by 11 PM. My wife had left on a mercy mission down to Frankfurt to save our elder daughter, whose nanny had gotten sick and couldn't take care of both our granddaughter and her work at the same time. I got to bed by 1 AM. I think.

Wednesday, I had to be up at 5 in order to be in Brussels for my 9:30 appointment. The train from Köln (Cologne) was late, and thus so was I. I barely made my third appointment in the Brussels area, even had the time to drop in to one of my sister's holiest sites. This is the Wittamer chocolate shop at the Place du Sablon. They make a white chocolate/Raspberry bar that is house-made, and available nowhere else. I got back to Gare du Midi/Zuidstation in time to make it back by 8, but had 4 hours of paperwork. Got that done and crashed.

Thursday, I got up at 4:20 AM in order to get a Thalys train to Paris from Düsseldorf. I was nervous about going there at all. I heard the strike had paralyzed everything. I decided to try it anyway. The train got into Paris half an hour late--within the margin of error. But then--the few taxis that WERE taking passengers told me to fuck off because I wasn't going "far enough." The Metro was gated shut. So I grabbed my 3 bags and walked the 40 minutes down into town (I was heading near the Opéra). I saw the 5 people I wanted to see, went on about 8 more delivery runs to give bottles of Champagne to 8 different people who had helped me out during the course of the year. At 3:30, I ducked into one of the few places to eat still open. It was a fast Chinese joint, but as long as it wasn't McDonald's, I just wanted something hot. Their re-heated spicy chicken on Basmati rice was actually good, and the Miso soup (in a Chinese place?) was actually decent.

When the Métro is running, I usually leave 40 minutes before my train back leaves. But it wasn't. So, after being called into an unscheduled meeting which I cut off after 15 minutes because I was scared of being stranded, I headed to the office of friends that was open and keeping my stuff for me, and grabbed my 3 bags. Same story with the taxis. You want to go WHERE? No, that's too close, go away. So I walked (uphill, this time) with all my stuff back to the Gare du Nord. I was thinking, here's the hotshot multi-lingual station chief for Europe, walking with three pieces of luggage for an hour through the cold and rainy streets of Paris to get to a train station. How glamorous. It was night by the time I got there, but I made it in good time. TOO good, in fact. Against all expectatioons, I got there an hour before my train was to leave. I grabbed a hot coffee (I usually drink tea), and looked for a place to sit. STUUUUPID! No place to sit. After ten minutes a place opened up and a kindly woman beckoned for me to sit in the spot just vacated. After staring at the clock for 50 minutes, which, if you have nothing else to do, takes about 5 hours, my train back to Germany was called. They decided on a random security search with a metal detector, so it was delayed, but what was another ten minutes, anyway? We finally left a little after 6 PM, and after another cold and rainy train change in Düsseldorf, I was home by 11 PM. One nice surprise was that my wife was home a day early. Neither of us were awake enough to do much more than say "hi."

This morning I was again up at 5 to get to our office near Utrecht in the Netherlands. I had to walk again through the driving freezing rain out to the Jaarbeursplein where a guy from our Dutch office had generously offered to pick me up and drive me to our office. Now I absolutely LOVE our Dutch team, and am always glad to be with them, but I still rushed through what I had to do and was back on the 1 PM train back to Germany. in Düsseldorf, before heading back to my town, I hopped on the métro ("U-Bahn" ), and visited a shop that sells a special kind of Swiss white chocolate with Raspberry and blackberry juice and bits of fruit running through it. One of our Dutch guys is retiring next week, and he loves the stuff. I am going back over to Holland next week for his retirement party, so I bought him a big (and obscenely expensive--€50) block of it. Then back through the rain to the U-Bahn, grabbed the last train segment of my work week and was home by 5 PM.

Now, don't get me wrong. I would never trade my job for a desk job. EVER. No way, no how. But while I used to take weeks like this in stride at age 37, at age 67, the wear and tear is starting to take its toll. Another fifteen more years of weeks like this one, and I think I'll be ready to seriously consider retirement. In fifteen years of looking, I haven't found someone to replace me, but Clemenceau once said that the cemeteries are full of people who were deemed irreplaceable, and they were all replaced. I need to keep reminding myself of that.

[CurtEastPoint]

1. Thank you for sharing. Although it did a number on you, I enjoyed reading it!

I used to travel when I was in my 30s and 40s but OMG now at 69, I only travel for pleasure and it's not stressful (usually).

I would give pretty much anything to be living in Europe for my remaining years.

[DFW]

2. Probably depends on where

Once you get int fighting the bureaucracy and the weather, you may end up using the other half of your round trip ticket!

I am married to one of the (very) friendly natives, and speak 9 European languages. Without that, I think I'd continue to visit as a contented tourist.

[Duppers]

3. How do you even remember all of this?! 😉

Sounds as exhausting as the solid 3 days I went without sleep traveling from Cambridge to Yorktown, VA with a 2yo in tow. 😉 But that was 2 decades ago.

Get some rest, DFW.

[DFW]

4. Good advice. I did!

I slept until 9:30 this morning (Saturday).

My wife and I both have plenty to do today, and a girlfriend of hers has invited a group of people out to some fancy dinner for her birthday. She will be 75, I think. She is taller than Dr. Ruth, but not much. HER professional life makes mine look like the corner druggist. She was CEO of her company, was always hopping on planes to Dubai or Moscow, knows Putin, has a few (cheaper) Picasso drawings in her apartment, a modest, if elegant, unassuming place near ours.

Tomorrow, I think I get the WHOLE day off. The craziness starts again on Tuesday, and lasts again through Friday night. Then, if I'm lucky, I'm done until Christmas here near Düsseldorf. A day later, we'll be in South Carolina.

I can remember stuff like this because part of my job depends on counterfeit money detection, and you have to remember fakes you haven't seen for 20 years. Not just phony $100 bills from Kim's North Korean print shop, but phony silver dollars from the year 1795, too (they are mostly from China these days).

[Duppers]

5. Exquisite memory you have.

Keeping notes for a book, I hope.

[DFW]

6. Not sure if it's worth it

Half the people would probably quit from boredom before they reached the tenth chapter, and the other half would probably think I made it all up. Makes for a limited audience, although most people who read my first book liked it, so who knows? On the other hand, it was definitely NOT autobiographical!

[FakeNoose]

7. Your posts are always interesting and fun to read

I can imagine you're looking forward to more relaxing times with your family during the Christmas holidays.
I'm envious of your access to the awesome Swiss & European chocolates that we just can't seem to get here in the states. If we get them at all, they're very expensive.

[DFW]

8. Thanks! And if it's any consolation

European chocolate is just about as expensive here as it is in the USA. When it gets exported, the 20% or so VAT that we pay here does not apply, so if the USA tacks less than that on as an import tariff, you pay about the same there as we do here. All but the most widespread mass-produced brands use high grade ingredients and have limited production. One brand, Bonnat from France, makes a few dozen chocolate bars using only cacao beans from one location. Those locations that provide a large production (e.g. Côte d'Ivoire) are about €4 for a 100 gram bar, but ones from small production locations, or ones that are challenging to transport due to local wars or logistics (e.g. Venezuela's Chuao) are over €8 per bar.

I don't recall seeing Läderach (Swiss) chocolate in the USA, but I'd bet they have some boutique story in Manhattan or Beverly Hills--someplace where they can charge their exorbitant prices, and still have a big customer base. They are the ones that make the Raspberry-blackberry white chocolate that blew away my Dutch colleagues when we were all together for work in Zürich in October. Stupid me. I turned my friends from Holland onto it while we were there, and unwittingly created an addictive monster that must now be fed (by me, of course) on a regular basis if harmony is to continue to reign in the province of Utrecht.

If I survive until next Saturday, I should be able to chill out for a bit. Thanks for the kind words!

[FakeNoose]

10. My favorite chocolates - that I can get readily in the states -

... are the Lindt brand (Lindor) chocolates from Switzerland. Yumm!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. Yikes. Traveling can be exhausting even when you're used to it.

I actually like flying - not the waiting in line in airports part, but the actual flying part. I like airplanes. The thing I dislike the most about traveling is having to drag my stuff around and stay in hotels. I don't like the hassle of packing and unpacking and sleeping in a strange bed on a mattress that's usually made of bricks and concrete, and it's either too hot or too cold and there isn't enough water pressure in the shower and the towels are scratchy and too small. Then you have to collect and pack your stuff again and go somewhere else. That's the drag part of traveling.

The best chocolate I ever had was something I bought at Schiphol Airport and I wish I could remember what it was. It was awesome.

[DFW]

11. Probably either Droste or one of the Belgian brands

Côte d'Or or Café Tasse maybe? Or one of the Belgian boutique brands, like Neuhaus, Godiva, Corné?

The distances here are so close, and the trains so fast, it's usually just as easy for me to take a train, though they are often more expensive than flying.

One thing that makes it a little easier is that I am in these countries so frequently, I can usually find where I'm going even when half asleep (usually) or blindfolded (hasn't gotten that bad yet). I'm rarely sent any more to countries where I don't speak the language, so that's never a barrier. Also, Düsseldorf is so centrally located that I can get to most any place I need to and be back in time for a late dinner without needing a hotel. Spain is too far for a train, but with an early morning flight out and a 7:30 PM flight back, all I have to do is leave 10 minutes early and grab a snack and some hot tea in the airport before boarding. I fly cheapo fares usually, and they never even give you a drop of water to drink. It isn't worth paying nearly double the fare for a sandwich of stale bread and watered-down coffee.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

12. I think I might have devoured it before I even noticed the brand name,

but I'm pretty sure it was Belgian. Also, KLM had some excellent chocolate cake.

[DFW]

13. KLM has better food than 90% of the rest of Holland

With such great food to the south (Belgium), I don't understand how the Netherlands (except the Asian food places) has such horrible food, but fortunately, KLM seems to have escaped the curse.