A Practical Day

I can really tell that I’m older than the last time I traveled because it has taken me far longer to get past the jet lag.  Today was the first day that I kinda led a normal life and didn’t need naps to get through the morning.  We’re six hours ahead of EDT here so getting up at 8:00AM has been feeling as if I’m rising at 2:00AM.  Going to bed at midnight has been going to bed at 6:00 PM.  My body hated it.

Today I was awake before the alarm and hungry for breakfast.  Wrote straight through the morning until 2:00 when I decided it was time to handle practical matters such as getting more hangers for the closet, unpacking and rearranging the bags, sending the laundry out and handwashing the underwear.  The balcony is great – I can drape underwear over the chairs for drying and there’s nobody to be offended by my brightly striped underdrawers.  Perfect unless of course it rains – as it did today – and everything gets dripping wet all over again.

At the end of this month there is a huge all European dog show here in Leeuwarden and my hotel has been fully booked for months.  They told me about the problem when I was discussing a long term arrangement with them and they assured me they would make another hotel reservation for me.  Later I was thinking that I should have taken that time to travel around the countryside, taking photos of the villages where my ancestors lived and staying in Drachten or Dokkum for the 2-3 days I would be without my usual hotel.  So I wasn’t at all upset when the hotel apologetically told me that the best they could do was book me into a hotel about 20 miles from here – in Drachten where my DeHaan ancestors lived in the mid-1800s.  I think I’ll rent a car for that time and really visit the villages in the area.  I miss my car, by the way, and am finding it difficult to get around by public transportation, although that may be just another symptom of my general jet lag fatigue.

I can’t believe how much I love writing the novel.  The characters are just insisting on going their own way and I think they are just so much fun.  I find myself hoping the novel is never completed cuz I’ll miss my new friends.