from a night on the train, chuggin’ along for 18 hours to Italy

Leaving Groningen. Mission accomplished. A series of good meetings.

[Thank you letter to my hosts will include this: I apologize that I was wearing a sweatshirt and pants. I had a professional outfit all packed and ready but it was too damn cold to wear it.]

Many nice memories of a town and a canal.



doing laundry on a boat


I forgive Groningen the Internet issues, the weather even. You could get a good cup of coffee just about anywhere and with it, a tasty little applenoot cake. I love that name! I want to be called an applenoot from hereon.



Before boarding the all-nighter, we shop for dinner: bread and cheese, tomatoes, lots of chocolate and a bottle of Italian wine. To celebrate the southern skies. You know, the ones with sunshine and real spring.


it's what's for dinner

Night train to Italy, with a pre-dawn change in Switzerland. Seats that sort of lean back. Ed and I, we are the oldest twosome in the car. Young kids with dreadlocks and long wisps of hair falling into the aisle as they sleep. Me, I am writing a blog.

The final six hours are through the Alps. The Swiss, they are so jaded. Another mountain. Yawn. Nose in newspaper, wake me up if something really interesting happens.



he reads, she dreams

I can never get tired of train travel in Europe. Go to sleep by the North Sea, pass by vineyard and mountains, wake up in the Italian boot that kicks around the waters of the Mediterranean. A food trolley rolls through your car early; the man sells coffee and croissants, you buy some, reach in for more chocolate and the left over grapes and do nothing if that is your will, but look outside and wonder what a day is like for the person walking along the path, up, up to his house at the edge of a village, with the colors of spring Alpine flowers and grasses filling your head and his. Winter’s all forgotten, done with.

UPDATE: tune in tomorrow to find out what happens to complicated travel plans when Nina leaves behind her passport on train.

from Groningen, the Netherlands: love thy neighbor’s food

Sunday. Three trains later we are in Groningen (home of a beautiful old university -- one with which we have an exchange progam, hence my visit here).

How about that weather! Tonight’s low is the average low for midwinter: 1 degree C!
Thanks, young taxi driver, for the message of gloom.

I am reminded of any small Dutch city. There’s a canal. There are barges. There are ornamented buildings. There are bicycles. There is no decent place to get something to eat after 9:30 at night.





But I was promised Internet at the hotel and that has not happened either. No matter, I am busy working all night Sunday and meeting with people all morning Monday. Later this evening I have an overnight train to catch for Italy. Sitting up and working this night as well. I can put aside blogging for a day, can’t I?

It appears that I cannot. And so I sit at a public library, work through their Internet technical difficulties and post.

As for food last night – I am going to mark the day off as irregular on account of the Queen’s birthday. Who feels like paying attention to cooking on such a special day. Still, I find Dutch menus hard, mostly because I do not understand what is meant by quintessentially Dutch food. Last night, I was stumped yet again and so I opted for the “Flemish special”: when in doubt, get fish and chips. Of course, because this is not Belgium, the chips (aka fries) weren’t extraordinary. But good enough.

Back to work headaches. They will disappear once I leave these northern dark skies and cross the border into Italy. Certo.