Nebraska

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I made it! KLM informs me that my trip on Monday took 20 hours and 11 minutes – which felt roughly like two hundred years and eleven months – but now I’m here and having a great time with my best friend, Aranel Took. 

The trip was long, but uneventful.

I’m glad I insisted on plenty of time for layovers and changing planes. If I had opted for the earlier flight, I would have missed the flight to Minneapolis in Amsterdam to start with! As it was, I had time to eat a slice of pizza and have a Pumpkin Spice Latte and to recharge my iPad before boarding. The flight to Minneapolis was very long and featured enough (albeit mild) turbulences to leave me in a state of low-level panic for a few hours. Note to self: next time just get that extra glass of red wine. I didn’t manage to sleep, but I finally saw “The Martian” and “Zootopia”, both of which I enjoyed. My seat neighbour was a very thin, very silent Dutch guy who spent most of the flight asleep, so that was really pleasant. The only weird thing was that the guy sitting behind me took off his shoes and put up his feet so that his toes poked my elbow. However, he apologized, and his hand-knitted woolen socks were very pretty. (But to protect my elbow from further incursions I stuffed the little pillow into the space above the armrest.) 

In Minneapolis I was glad for insisting on more time for changing planes all over again, because it turns out that automated immigration isn’t faster at all. That only meant one additional queue. One queue for the immigration machines, and then another queue for the customs officer. I spent most of the time in Minneapolis hunting Pokémon. There were awesome Pokémon there! I caught three Tauros!

The final part of the journey, the flight to Nebraska, threatened to turn into an adventure due to thunderstorms. But the pilot started the descent early, so there were less turbulences than on the flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis, and I got to see a thunderstorm from a new perspective. The display of lightning and clouds was breathtaking.

Getting here late at night turned out to be a good thing, too: no jet lag!

On Tuesday we went to a Barnes & Noble bookshop (a seriously dangerous place) before going to see “Star Trek Beyond” together. Aranel and I are working on an epic Star Trek fanfic together, so that was seriously awesome. Especially since I managed to get here just in time for the final day of shows!

I was in charge of dinner that night and we made spicy coconut noodles, which turned out really yummy. And Aranel started her crusade to finally introduce me to the marvels of Marvel, so we watched Ironman I.

Yesterday we drove to the Missouri for a lovely walk along the river, and even caught some fish!

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We had Jamabalaya for dinner and then we watched HULK.

Today it’s humid and grey and feels a lot like autumn, so we’re having a writing day. (Okay, so far I’ve been mostly reading the latest “October Daye” novel by Seanan McGuire, but I swear I will work on my Star Trek fic later!)

It’s great to be back here – in a weird way I feel as if I left only last week, as if no time has passed since my husband and I stayed here a year ago. I’ve only had good experiences meeting up with online friend, but the level of comfort my best friend and I have is seriously awesome. I’m so happy I could take this trip. This is seriously one of the best Christmas presents I’ve ever received (the money for the plane ticket was a gift from my Dad).