Marcie's Big Adventure - Day 18/Trip Home

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Hi Everyone,

Traveling home. Between the train station, the airport and the train station in the airport, I cannot begin to tell you how many times I uttered the words “do you speak English?”. Thankfully most people were willing to help if they could. There were a couple times that several of us tourists were huddled around asking each other, trying to figure out which way to go. In the train station, beside the train, we were having one of those conversations and an English speaking passenger heard us, got off his train and told us that yes, that is the train to the airport and then he got back on his train. Very friendly people here. The airport goes on forever and has so many corridors to walk down or walk past. I did go to the airport's Lost & Found, since my pocketbook had been lost on my way to the airport on Sunday to get the train from the train station within the airport into Amsterdam. She was very kind and showed me pictures of all the pocketbooks/purses/handbags that they had but none were mine. I had to keep taking stairs (or the elevator) to get either up or down to the floor that I needed to be on at that moment in time. Finally got to my gate, which I had to go down to the lower level floor. That meant no jet bridge and that we had to walk up very tall, steep steps to get onto the plane. We also had to take a bus to take us out to the plane. As luck would have it, today it was raining hard. So we had plenty of opportunity to get drenched before getting onto a cold plane to start an 8 hour flight. I immediately got the big blanket out of its packaging at my seat and snuggled up in it and was as warm as toast pretty quickly, it took longer to dry. All part of the journey! Speaking of journeys, I want to thank all of you for going on this journey with me. The comments you sent me were wonderful. Sorry I didn’t answer the emails, I meant to but time and vacationing kept getting in the way, please forgive me and I will answer them in the next day or two. I saw a lot of great places and met a lot of great people. Sharing my experience with you made it more enjoyable for me. Much better than just telling folks I had a great time! Got home Wednesday night at 8:20 and was in bed by 8:30. Didn't get up again until 7:30 this morning (Friday). Got up, went to the DMV to replace my drivers license and went back to bed as soon as I got home! Would I do another Transatlantic cruise again, yes. My preference would be to go in the other direction and end up at home. That way all the excursions are done right up front, you get all those hours back on the way home and you get home rested because the sea days are at the end of the cruise instead of the beginning. Would I do another vacation like this alone? No. My solo buddies helped make the cruise part of it enjoyable and have something to look forward to each day as we met up every night. There’s no guarantee that that would happen again on another cruise. I am still very glad that I did this. After it was all said and done, I would be happy to join someone else on another cruise or package type tour, even if they wanted their own cabin/room. I prefer the companionship of traveling with someone, especially when exploring new places! It's great to be home.

Thank you all for coming along with me! Love and hugs, Marcie

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