Kidnapped

"So the guy says he's gonna post every Monday and Friday, what the hell happened?" you must be wondering. Well I can surely be forgiven for not having updated in a while since my mom has KIDNAPPED me!

Two hours after having met her at the Greyhound bus station in Tallahasee Florida Tuesday evening, the woman somehow convinced me to board a cross-continental train which was leaving two hours later! And now I find myself in the Stillwell Hotel (sorry Rachel, I've already asked at the front desk and they don't have postcards of the place, otherwise one would already be on its way to you) in downtown Los Angeles, if you can believe it ... I hope you can, 'cause I'm still having a hard time believing it myself!

Where the little girls
in dem Hollywood BUNG-alows.
Are you a lucky little lady in the city of night?
Or just another lost angel? - Jim Morrison

Before more of LA and the train trip, back to Amsterdam first .. great good times over dinner Friday night at Dwaze Zaken; then on Saturday beers and pool as promised at de Buurvrouw -- and btw God bless you Mark Truebridge, for being the first to show up there (at like 10:40, after I'd announced wide and far that I'd be there after 10) and rescuing me from my paranoid delusion that I was going to continue drinking beers by myself all night on my next-to-last night in Amsterdam! -- and that followed by a brief appearance at Diepte before cycling semi-drunkenly home about 2:30.

Caught a 10:47 train Sunday morning down to Breukelen where Rob, Miranda and their cherubic child Ichelle met me for our drive to the Heuvelrug sauna in Veenendaal, highly recommened for those with few qualms about intergender (although non-sexual) nakedness and generally lounging around in and out of water at different temperatures and in different states. And then packing and preparing for departure all Sunday night; the first time that I slept since getting up about 10 Sunday morning was a few minutes before my Martinair flight for Miami took off from Schiphol, about 3:30 Monday afternoon! And then I was out like a light for the whole trip (except when they came around with food and bev carts .. amazing how I always woke up when they were serving)!

Anyway I gotta wrap this up .. since there are no internet cafes in downtown LA, and since I did not want to keep my public waiting any longer, I have decided to spend $5 on a half-hour's internet time to explain why I've been away so long, and I now have 8 minutes left! I've got lots more to tell about the train trip (3 days from Florida to LA, arriving ten hours late .. our train crossed down into Mexico the last night where they could run on faster track and make up about 2 hours time) and my time with Mary Lou, who is indeed 84. I choked up the nerve to ask her the other day and although she hates like hell to admit, she was indeed born in 1920 (Nov. 6). To me and to almost everyone she comes in contact with she doesn't look a day over seventy-seven. Naw I'm kidding, she's really doing great; I'm very pleasantly surprised and very proud of her.

OK kids that's gotta hold ya for a while. There's lots more to tell, and will be looking to get back online in the next couple of days to fill in the gaps. Until then!