Itinerary

To save a little money on this trip – and because, to be honest, it sounded like fun – we didn’t fly to Eindhoven, or even to Amsterdam.

• Flew to London,.
• Took the subway to St. Pancras. In London, they advertise books on the subway.
• Had a nice brioche at St. Pancras, and took the Eurostar to Brussels. It’s fast.
• Thalys express, Brussels to Rotterdam. (Like the Eurostar, this train really moved. Continuous welded rail is smooth.)
• Local train back to Utrecht.
• Another local train to Eindhoven. This one was standing room only, although we had plenty of company in the vestibule, including a pair of young Dutch couples doing a Meet Cute.

One fellow on his cell phone said, “Hallo! Wat? OK! Nee…”. Dutch vowels are surprisingly close to American English. (So are Scots vowels from the far North; you can hear plenty of Invergordon in New Hampshire.) But “nej” (sp?) gives it away, though the English used to say “nay”. too. This set me off into trying to remember whether Shakespeare or Milton ever say “yes”. No googling!