Back

This is becoming more of a travel blog than anything else, but I'd much rather use this blog as a release from my boring research, so there you go.

I'm back in Oxford. I had a very laid back summer, which was great. We went in the hot tub, I helped my mom apply for jobs, and I became addicted to two shows: Jon & Kate Plus Eight and Army Wives. I also spent some time in the library making a start on my next diss chapter, which is good.

My flight back today was pretty cool. The only international flight (Canada doesn't count) from my local airport is through Amsterdam, so for the first time I tried that flight. (Sadly, they are ending that flight service at the end of this month!) The plane was crappy - shared TVs and only one movie rather than "on demand," which is more the norm for international flights these days. It was also hard now that I've been on a business class flight, to know that they're having nice dinners with linens and silverware while I am eating what is essentially a TV dinner. But there were some things I liked about the experience that made me want to do it again.

I really liked Amsterdam Airport. All of the signs were in English, and the Dutch speak really good English, so it was very easy to navigate. I bought lots of souvenir crap when I was there - everything with wooden shoes and tulips and Delft designs. It actually made me want to take a proper trip to Amsterdam at some point - I think it would be easy to manage.

The best part was that when I got to London, the customs lines were very short. This is because I usually fly on some giant plane from some major US city, so 500 non-UK and EU people spill out and you have to wait for ages while the 12 UK and EU people zip through customs. (In the UK and the European Union, you can pretty much fly anywhere like you might do in the States, and customs is very easy. The non-Europeans have to queue with their passports to get stamped and all that.) Since this flight came through Amsterdam and had mostly Europeans on it, they had to queue while the small handful of non-EU people got to zip right through! Also, this flight had only a hundred or so people on it, so I didn't have to wait for ages while 500 people searched for their luggage. It was very convenient.

Got back to Catz a little before noon. I've been sleeping off the jetlag ever since, and I just had my usual back-to-the-UK dinner of Chinese delivery. Tomorrow is Chung's going-away party, and I'll probably get cracking on some work!

Stay classy, blogosphere,
Kaitlin