amendment to the last blog + a little more

The last story is missing the most exciting part, and for this i must apologize. It was late and all I could think about was going to bed or at least this is the only excuse i can think of at the moment.
I arrived in Friesland late Thursday night and Froukje's father told us he would wake us up the next morning around 7 to go work on the sail boat. It was the first time the boat would be in the water so we had to clean it up and get it ready to go. Sure enough, the next morning greeted me with a robust, "Goed Morga, morga morga" (imagine the "g" with a very gutteral throat clearing sound). Froukje's father was joyfully waking everyone up and bringing us a cup of good, Dutch coffee along with his cheer. "Wow," i thought. "this is fantastic - almost like breakfast in bead!" As we all got dressed, some more joyfully than others, and headed to the marina down the road, we found the boat had already been put in by the marina. I was happy because this meant we no longer had to clean and paint the bottom and could begin sailing much sooner. We cleaned and drank more coffee and the cleaned a bit more and then drank some tea. Finally, they put on the small motor. Now most of you know how much I enjoy working on and tinkering with nearly anything, so when the motor wouldn't start they began asking me if i knew anything about it. "A little," i said not wanting to claim i could fix a motor i'd never seen or worked on before. They pulled the cord some more and nothing happened. Finally they continued to question whether or not i had any mechanic abilities and i tried not to claim very much. In the end, i found myself sitting around the motor teaching them about how it works and why it wasn't starting. I showed them how to check if there was spark and there was. Then i explained that it was a fuel issue. Pulling a spark plug revealed that it had some water on it. At this point i was informed that they hadn't really done anything to the motor for 5 years because it always worked. Anyhow, i informed them that we had to drain the fuel tank, lines, and carbeurator before it would run. Having only my swiss army at my disposal, i went to work taking the covers off, draining the tank and then taking the carb. apart to get the water out of the float bowl (sorry if this is boring and too in depth but no one is forcing you to read this...and everyone should know how a boat motor works, right? :)
Time passed along with cups of tea and coffee. We put the motor back together and one pull proved successful!

In other news, i made it home safely. After mechanical problems in Amsterdam, we finally boarded the jet 5 hours after scheduled. Many people were getting stressed out and once again i got to see the stressed-out-traveler-gone-crazy act. thankfully i really wasn't in a hurry apart from the fact that i was ready to go home once i had started the journey back. The airline did give us free coke, water, snickers, kit kats, and even banquette (a dutch almond concoction). In fact, there was an older man that stole at least 10 candy bars. He or his wife would walk up, stand around a bit, take a few bars and nonchalantly hide them in his hand before returning to his seat. The bad news was that they wouldn't let me watch the mechanics work on the broken jet engine...some security thing they said, sheesh.
After 5 hours we flew over the big pond only to find that the weather in the U.S. was not conducive to a flying machine. Chicago was hectic but somehow I got on a stand by flight to minneapolis where my lovely sister and brother in law were waiting to pick me up (not waiting all day, just to clarify).

It is good to be back. Nilla (my dog) recognized me and was very happy to see me so that was good. Driving a car again was oodles of fun and there was even a good amount of snow left for me to enjoy in southern minnesota!

In closing, i must mention that when i was packing to leave there were two shirts my mother told me i should take along. One was a red button down and the other a blue half button (sorry, i don't know clothing style names) pullover shirt. They took up too much room and i didn't want to take them. She told me i would be glad if i did. Somehow, mothers always seem to have a knack for knowing things and she was right. THose two shirts i almost did not take became my two favorites to wear. Chalk another one up for mothers.