To Catch a Thief

Saturday, July 20, 2024

I woke up at 4am-ish and used the bathroom. I wondered if our flight was still on time. Luckily, Keith was checking when I came back to bed. Still on time! We got up at 6:30ish to be packed and out the door at 8:00. Everything went well – suitcase is under weight, no problems. Keith texted our very nice apartment manager and said we were out the door. As we rolled to the door, he checked again.

Flight cancelled.

Oh.

Well.

That’s a bummer. Not a total surprise, but still, a bummer. They had auto rescheduled us on the same flight tomorrow – which was great, except we wouldn’t be able to catch our flight home. (Sorry – logistics: flying to Amsterdam today and home Sunday) I figured if we were lucky we would be able to switch our flight to Monday and just have an extra day…somewhere. While we were working on the flight home issue, we got a notification that we could select another flight if available and a flight was indeed available in the afternoon instead.

Okay! There were some strange follow up emails about changing our seats, and we couldn’t check in online for a while, but eventually it shook itself out and we were confident we had a flight this afternoon. Before we left, I put the rest of the box of Kleenex we brought from home in the storage closet of our apartment. We have new stuff to fill up the suitcase, so we have to leave it behind. We stored our luggage and set out to walk around the old town of Luxembourg.

It turns out we missed a lot of it yesterday and there were lots more windows to shop in and restaurants to look at. We found a souvenir shop and t-shirts!

There was a farmer’s market in one square. We enjoyed the smells of the food, but were set on having Pret a Manger for lunch. We waited until 11:00 and then we were hungry, so we headed over. Turns out they don’t start cooking lunch hot food until noon…or after. Hmmm.

We went to the bakery and got France sammiches – with tomato and lettuce and seeds on the top of the bread. How great! With all the France sammiches we have eaten this trip, we both agreed that Epcot France sammiches are best. How is that even possible?

The other main square had a thrift market going on today. We sat on a bench and shared a Milka bar and watched people shop. I was honestly surprised at how many people bought glassware from the shop in front of us in the ten minutes we sat there. We decided to shop along a bit before it was time to airport. I was standing, looking at chunky costume jewelry, and I just happened to look up and at the table diagonally from me. I saw a man quickly pick up something from the brooch area. The woman ahead of him was very close to him and I thought he might be with her, that he might show it to her, but mostly I was thinking, “He is stealing that.” I watched him – he passed me- wondering if he would buy it, but he didn’t even look at it – then started casually walking away, away from the market area. I got the merchant’s attention and said, “I think that man stole a brooch from your table. With the pink shirt. Blue hat.” He was walking away but wasn’t going fast and was still in sight. She smiled at me and said, “Picture? yes.” Uh oh. Not so much English. I tried German. “Der Mann hat etwas gestohlen. Er is ein Dieb!” Nothing. The woman next to me jumped in and said similar things in English, then said a little bit in some other language. The merchant lady suddenly understood and jumped to action. She raced out of the booth, and the other lady and I followed her. She was pointing all around and we were pointing the direction we had seen him go. We got pink shirt across somehow. I led her into a restaurant, chagrined to see that it went straight through to another square in the back. He was gone. We zoomed through the restaurant and there he was! There was a woman at a table outside a restaurant. She had a bunch of stuff on the table, as well as the remnants of lunch. The merchant lady stormed up to him and said something we could not hear (and would not have understood). He shrugged. I was kinda pissed at him for not confessing. I mean, I know I wouldn’t have confessed, because who would, but still. In a moment, he walked over to a big shopping bag hanging off a stroller parked by the edge of the fence around the restaurant area. The other witness lady said he had never gotten over there – it wasn’t going to be there. I said he could have dropped it from the outside as he passed. The merchant pointed at me and the other witness. The thief dug in the bag and produced her item. She profusely thanked us – Merci, merci, merci. I followed her back to where I had left Keith and listened (without understanding, and yet understanding) as she chattered breathlessly to the merchants at other booths. It was so exciting.

We flew to Amsterdam without incident. We had a coke zero lemon in the airport. We both liked it more than regular coke zero.

Since we stayed at an airport hotel last time we were here (two years ago) we felt right at home when we walked around. We had a reservation at the CitizenM hotel – a block farther away that the Sheraton we stayed at last time. The full force of 88 degrees hit us when we walked outside. We are NOT used to hot weather. We got close and saw that a big silver someone had dropped their head in the yard. We got room 422, the same number as our room in Paris and of my college house. How convenient. As we walked down the hall, I said the doors were very close. These rooms were going to be pods.

We found 422, opened the door, and it WAS A POD! Keith forgot he booked us into a pod room. It is so great. The bed is square, so you put the pillows any direction. The curtains work by remote control. You can change the color of the lights over the shower and the toilet circles. I was very excited. I am still very excited. It’s like a camper hotel. There is a little stuffy guy on the bed. It makes it feel homey, even though my home doesn’t have a guy like that.

We trained into downtown Amsterdam. Oh, how easy it was. I remember how confused we were the first time. This time, one, two, three and we were there.

We tasted and bought cheese. Seriously, we brought one suitcase and we keep buying things. I just keep saying I just have to lug my carryon onto the plane, it can be heavy. It is going to be three cheeses heavier.

Next, we went into a clothing store because there was a shirt in the window that I had to touch. It was cool. Keith thought it was too hot (apparently it wasn’t actually cool) for a short-sleeved shirt, so we didn’t get it.

Next came the dinner debate. We loved Wok to Walk – a fast food wok place – last time, but we were also thinking Dutch pancakes. THEN a potato place jumped out at us.

There are restaurants upon restaurants, so we just kept waffling (including thinking about waffles). We finally decided on the potato place, because it was new. We walked all the way back, which was much farther than we thought, then I said, NO, we can eat potatoes at home (we won’t) (but we could) and we went to Wok to Walk. I put 7 heaping tiny spoonfulls of chili paste in my stir fry and it was so good.

We strolled around, smelling the rotation of smells – pot, cigarette smoke, garbage, pot, waffles cooking, pot, cigarette smoke, etc. There was a demonstration about freeing Palestine in the same square they were demonstrating about Ukraine two years ago. No one played, and replayed, Lean on Me like last time, but we sang a little bit.

We walked by the Ripley’s Believe it or not museum and they had an audio animatronic Robert Wadlow in the entry. He was standing, but he sat down before I could take a picture.

Saw some Dutch masters, as you do in Amsterdam.

Saw this; learned this.

We stopped for a dessert waffle. I was having outrageous HOT (again) (964th time today) and couldn’t really eat, so Keith had to handle it on his own. He did well.

Back at the hotel, our pod is a bit warm. We had asked them to turn the AC on higher for us and they said they would. Turns out something is wrong. They tried to find a place to move us, but everything is full because of the big shutdown yesterday. I am in the lobby right now, writing this, and it is very comfortable. If I roast at night, I will just come down and rest on one of the couches. Or go outside, where there is a VERY nice breeze blowing (High of 71 tomorrow instead of 89 today!)