One Night Only

It’s a cold Grolsch. Served perfectly in the Dutch style with a two-finger head brushed off coolly by the bartender. Gold and appropriately perspiring as it exits the cooler tap and begins to sit in my glass. But for all intents and purposes, it’s has no business being in my hand right now.

This is the nicest Holiday Inn on the planet. Okay, I can’t verify that for sure, but the floor-to-vaulted ceiling windows, crisp design and inch-perfect tidiness collaborate to deliver a most delightful first-world-plus, euro-chic vibe.

Outside turns to dusk as the last of the sun paints the horizon. Beautiful burnt browns, tans and yellows fade into a green blue water sky. In my entire life, I’ve never seen the sun set this late. Not by a lot. The clock just struck 10:30 and I’m struck with a palpable sense of possibility. How else could I react to the invitation of daylight well into the throws of night?

A Norwegian engineer told me that his hometown will only see two hours of dark tonight. I can’t even imagine. And to think Latvia is on a similar parallel. He also told me that the windmills so common in the The Netherlands are primarily used to pump water, even out the water table and keep the land dry, even below sea level. Lastly he mentioned that the west coast of Norway exports huge amounts of rock to The Netherlands for dyke construction and other building projects. Movement on this planet never comes without its fun facts.

Nor does it fail to inspire my palate. Curious how getting back to a certain region awakens my desire for flavors I seldom crave in other places. It’s like that jones you might have for barbecue, hush puppies and cole slaw when you enter North Carolina; Or chai in the Pune train station; or a hot dog at Fenway Park. Lets put it this way, I just surfed the Holiday Inn dinner buffet and spent decided against chicken, beef and rice in favor of smoked fish, cured meats and baguette. And cucumbers.

I’ve never had a flight canceled before. Now I’ve had two cancellations on the same trip and I still have two flights to go. This has got to go down as one of the deepest travel scars of my young life. Still, I’m living large in the Holiday Inn Schipol and reminded of the joints I stayed at with my Mom on the epic road trip of 2001 from Rome to Vienna and back (This is the trip where she delivered a master class on Italian Driving and managed to break us out of Ertzberg Station within days of each other. To this day, these events remain as two of the top travel achievements of I’ve had the fortune to witness. I’m going to honor that trip with a second trip to the cured meat bar now.)

Back at my seat, the seemingly everlasting sunset continues backed by a soul/lounge version of Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes. This has got to be the most painful euro-cover I’ve ever heard. Yet, somehow, painful euro-covers always seem to find their place into your life at the right time. Tomorrow I go to Riga and a seven nation army couldn’t hold me back.