The Trip Home

I dreaded spending the weekend alone in Milan before heading home. I figured I'd be lucky if I made it back into the States sane after sitting around a hotel for two full days thinking about how much I missed Florence, how strange it was that it was all over, etc. But I was flying out of Bergamo, which was actually a pretty nice little town. The pensione I stayed in was simple but the family was pretty nice, and though my room was about the size of a phone booth, I spent most of my time walking around the town, reading my book, and exploring Citta' Alta. Citta' Alta was the old portion of the town, elevated above the rest. It was like any other small Italian town I've visited this year...pleasing, intriguing, enchanting. Still, when you don't have anyone else to share it with, the experience can only be so good.

This morning, however, the true journey began. The flight out of Bergamo was smooth and I even managed to catch an earlier flight out of Berlin to Amsterdam. This was huge, since otherwise I was going to spend a full eight hours in the Tegel Airport waiting. Still, when I reached Amsterdam, I had to book a hotel room for the night since my final flight home doesn't leave until tomorrow afternoon. So here I am now, in a large, two bed hotel room about 15 minutes from the airport but too far from Amsterdam to see the city. The problem is that it's in the middle of a bunch of office buildings- there's no kebab place for miles. The room service breaks down like this:

-Doesburger (some sort of hamburger): E 12.50

-Pasta bolognese: E 12.50

-Selection of Dutch Cheeses: E 8.50

-Club Sandwich: E 12.50

Plus an additional 2.50 service fee.


What's worse is that in the mini-bar, there's a mini-can of Pringles for E 4.50. They do this because they can. And it's working...I'm starving and I'm about to feast on that 5 euro candy bar in the fridge. Could there be a more appropriate way to spend my last night in Europe than getting ripped off paying way too much money for small amounts of food? I must go, dinner awaits...