April 17-18 -- home again, home again

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My ears were pretty clogged when I got to Amsterdam/Schiphol on April 17 (you'll recall that I have a cold....).  I'd actually visited the farmacia at the airport in Milan.  I haven't spent a lot of time in that sort of store (visited what I think is more or less the same thing in France, once).  From the window displays, I think they are about health, but are more ... alternative (homeopathy, for example) than we expect a pharmacy to be, in the USA.

I told the woman I took to be the boss at the farmacia that I had a cold, and I was looking for something to keep my ears open on an airplane.  Given what my impressions are about what farmacias do, I was hoping for maybe some capsaisin (the hot in hot peppers), which I find helps open my sinuses.....  She informed me the problem was not my ears but my sinuses, and that there was nothing she could do for me.

Okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy........

(and sigh and alas...........)

My ears did, in fact, clog up when we were landing in Amsterdam, even though I'd been drinking and drinking (water).

I spent some time trying to find something to get my ears open before I had to get on another plane to go home.  Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris is packed with stores like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, etc.  So is Schiphol, but it also has more food, and more of the kind of stores you'd find in a big airport here in the USA -- bookstores, souvenir stores, travelers' needs.

I went in a travelers' needs store, and was directed to a perfume store.  Ok.......  The perfume store told me they didn't have what I needed, but if I went farther (in the direction I needed to go, anyway), I would see a big perfume store on the left, and, across from it, a smaller perfume store, which would have what I needed.  She even told me the name of what she thought I should have, pointing to her pin on her shirt (which may have named her profession?), and telling me that she wasn't authorized to sell that sort of thing.

(THANK GOODNESS so many people speak English!  We are very lucky to speak the language spoken and understood by so many people everywhere!  !!!!!!!!!)

I found the big perfume store, and found the small perfume store, and bought something that I think is a lot like Afrin -- nasal spray that is supposed to open up the sinuses.  I had to use it right there and then in the store, so they could seal it in a special bag for me to take through security.

Okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy........

I'd not left security, so was puzzled, and would have preferred to go in a bathroom, but they showed me to a big mirror and read me the directions (which were in Dutch, of course), so I used it, watched it get sealed in the bag, paid for it, thanked them profusely, and walked on to my gate.  I was kind of hoping for a miracle, from using the stuff, and thought maybe my nose was runnier, but I couldn't tell a difference to my ears.

(Digression 1:  When you're a stranger in a strange land, a lot of the time you just do what they tell you, and just wonder "why?" in a casual way, rather than trying to find out....................
End of Digression 1.)

(Digression 2:  the outside of the little box the nasal spray came in is all Braille!  At least, I assume that's what all the raised dots are.  Isn't that an excellent idea?????
End of Digression 2.)

Well, the mystery about getting through security was revealed -- we had to go through security again before we could get on the airplane.  At least -- *I* had to go through *again* -- I guess I don't know if everyone else there had already been through, once, before that......  I didn't see security at every gate, though, so I'm guessing that they are more picky about international travelers.  Or travelers to the US.  Or something.

I was surprised when they started boarding us so early (about an hour before the flight), but it turned out they weren't really boarding us.  They were putting us through security and holding us in an enclosed area.  Ok.  Whatever.

I'd been drinking like a fish, in hopes of doing all I could to keep my ears open.  I'd filled my water bottle and drunk it, once, and had filled it again just before I got to the gate.  So I drank it (20 oz bottle!).  And went through security.  And then visited the secure bathroom in our secure area and filled it again!

In Milan the security was metal detectors for people; in Shiphol it was those hold-your-hands in the air xrays.  And I still got patted down pretty thoroughly.  I suspect that's why the second security; they don't necessarily trust everyone else's security.....

Anyway.

Got on the plane, which was blessedly uncrowded.  The plane had pairs of seats on the sides, and four or five seats in the middle, depending on where you were in the plane.  In the very back, where the body of the plane tapered toward the tail, there were four.  No one sat next to me (which was very good, as all that drinking led to a lot of trips to the bathroom).  No one sat next to the person in front of me (who had moved across the aisle from a full group of four seats), and no one sat next to the person behind me.  The guy behind me sat on the aisle, which was nice -- when the woman in front of me put her seat back (putting my little tv to close to my face for comfort), I could put my seat back without being in the space of the man behind me (which I hate to do).

I think the guys the woman in front of me moved away from may have been part of a rock band.  There were five guys who were clearly together.  Two of them had very long hair; another was heavily tattooed (.  One of the long-hairs moved into the aisle seat vacated by the woman, and spent most of the flight playing with his ipad (or similar device).  He looked at pictures of what looked like a rock band, with guys of similar sizes and shapes to the guys on the plane (we'll see if my pics of his device turn out).  He read articles that looked like they might be about rock bands.  He used an art app to wipe out the photographic face of one of the guys and drew a cartoony face on it.  He combined the video camera's image of himself with some app that distorted the image.  He laughed a lot...........

I listened to some TED talks, I checked out the movies (and watched a Cirque de Soleil movie), I tried to play a game but couldn't figure out how to manipulate anything.  I read a bit on the ipod/phone, but wasn't in the mood for what I had on there, and ended up reading the one paperback novel I'd taken with me.

Of course I looked out the window.  I love (love, love) that I coud see where we are on my little tv.  I took advantage of the empty seat next to me, and put its tv on the "flight map channel," so I could glance at it even when I was listening to TED or watching Cirque de Soleil.  Shortly after we left, we crossed over land just before the cloud cover got too thick to see anything, and I could tell it must be the northeastern coast of England, from the map.  For a long time, over the ocean, it was only partly cloudy.  I was hoping for a glimpse of Greenland, as we came pretty close to its southern tip, but never saw it (lots of clouds at that time....).  A LOT of this sort of flight was over Canada.  I was surprised that so much of it was frozen.  Lots and lots of snowy land down there (and enough that wasn't snowy that I'm sure it was land!).

They fed us a couple of times (the spicy Thai curry was the best thing I've had on a Delta flight in a long time).

I drank and drank and drank.  Every time the flight attendants asked what we wanted to drink, I got more water.

My ears opened up in the middle of the flight.

The nice Dutch women who sold me the nasal spray had assured me I could open the special bag and use the stuff again on the plane, and had told me I could use the stuff every 4 to 6 hours.  I was fine at four hours, so used it at just short of six, when I thought maybe I was feeling more stuffy again.

Eventually we came down into Detroit. I could tell at 35 or 40 minutes out that landing would be an issue for my ears, and I spent the last 25 or so minutes rubbing my ears, hoping to keep anything from exploding.  It never really got to be painful, but very very very clogged.

Sitting in the back of the plane was convenient to a bathroom, but it meant that A LOT of people were ahead of me in the customs line.  I was glad I'd used the bathroom on the plane not too long before we started to land.

It was interesting to go through customs with impaired hearing.  I could hear them, but it was as though there was a (double-glazed!) window between us, or something.

I opened each conversation with "I have a cold; my ears are clogged; if it seems like I can't hear you, that would be because maybe I can't!"  I told the first guy that I had almonds, purchased in the USA, which I had carried around with me and brought back.  He said it wasn't a problem where ever their origin was; they were ok to bring in.

Okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.......  They say "no seeds" on the customs declaration form.............

Whatever.

I also told him about the nasal spray and the special bag and all that.  He said that "they always seal stuff in that special bag" and that as long as it wasn't prescription and I only bought one it was ok.  He didn't look at anything, just decided I was on the up and up, I guess.

I collected my checked bag, and had to talk to another customs agent.  She asked me how long I'd been in Italy, and sent me on through.

I called my better half, and we discovered that he'd JUST driven past "International Arrivals."   He swung back around, we loaded up, and headed home.  He'd brought the dog (as opposed to abandoning him at home).  Willard was glad to see me, and thought he'd like to get out of the crate.  Um.  Not at the airport.  I told him we'd go home, and then he could get out.

And so we did.

My left ear (which was worse yesterday) is still clogged.  In a bit, I'll go downstairs and make myself some hot water, with lemon extract and crushed hot pepper.....

I managed to sleep until 5:00 this morning -- which would be 11:00, Italian time.  Not bad; and I believe I was asleep before 11:00, last night.  Maybe before 10:00.

Two days ago I got a new enormous floater, in my left eye, to match the one I got in my right eye a couple of years ago.  Sigh.  I will go see they eye doc today, to make sure all is ok in my eye, and may have someone look at my ear, too, if it's still clogged.  It doesn't hurt (though it thinks about hurting, when I bend over), but if I am near some docs, I will get someone to have a glance.

So that is that.

I did a bunch of triaging of pics while I was in Italy, but no post-processing.  I'll begin with that soon; probably today.  Then I'll begin to flood the blog with back-dated posts (so they appear on the day they happened, rather than the day I make them), full of pics and talk.

Good morning!



In order to facilitate chronological traversal of these posts, here is a link to the next post.

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