11-8

Day 16

There was nothing on the agenda for today, so we mostly sat around and watched TV.  Emily commented on that, and Jeff told her that this was what it was all for, to just relax and enjoy some television.  I'm not sure if he's right or not, but we watched the rest of "Detectorists," and I did really enjoy that, despite how cruel and sad it was.

Well, here we are: my last night in Europe.  Jeff has gone to sleep (and rightly so, since he's getting me up at 3:55am to make my flight), and I'm typing this, waiting for the NyQuil I just took to kick in.

As the man said, I'm not even supposed to be here today.  My initial flight home was two days ago, but it got delayed, and ultimately canceled, and they booked me on the next soonest flight back to Amsterdam and on to the U.S., which is tomorrow morning at six-something.  So I had an extra day and a half here, where we didn't do much but watch "Detectorists" and HOT FUZZ, though we did go into town for lunch and walked a bit through the city (though Jeff hadn't brought his cane, and was suffering greatly after a little while, something I didn't pick up on until he mentioned it later).  

Downtown Stuttgart.

We'd walked to the train station when I realized I didn't have a mask with me, so we walked back to get it, and I grabbed a coat and a mask.  When we got to the bus terminal, Emily said that only two-thirds of the people even wear their masks on the trains anymore, which made me wonder why we'd gone all the way back.  But I am a foreigner, and it's best not to stand out, right?

We went to Five Guys downtown, and the cashier spoke to me in English, which was such a relief, I exclaimed, "Oh my gosh, your English is excellent!"  Her sweetish face soured and she said, "I am from Nigeria," like I had asked her when her baby was due, or how her gender reassignment surgery was going.  I had meant no offense . . . it had just been refreshing to hear*.  But hey, I'll probably forever associate Five Guys Burgers with my trip to Europe (we went to three of them, more than any other restaurant),

Well, the cold medicine is kicking in faster than I thought it would.  So, light out, and pleasant journeys.

*There was a German man in the seat next to me on the train from Paris to Stuttgart, who did business in France speaking English, and we had a bit of a conversation.  He had a lot of trouble understanding me, until I up-shifted into a British accent, after which, he exclaimed, "Ah, now you are speaking English!"  True dat.