On our way back to the hotel, we noticed a boat crammed full of partiers passing by on one of the canals. They seemed to be having a wonderful time.

But for us, the party was over. It was time to go home. We were a little nervous about the procedure, remembering our surprise layovers from the previous couple of years. As it turned out, our return from Amsterdam ended up being complicated as well, but this time we only had ourselves to blame. First, when we were making reservations there weren't many flights available from Amsterdam to LA, and we ended up with a flight that left Amsterdam at 7 AM. Doing the math (time to wake up, get put together, check out, get to the train station, ride the train to the airport, check in, go through security, etc.), it didn't seem like we'd have much time to sleep at the hotel that night. So we didn't. Before going to explore churches in the morning, we'd already checked out, and our plan was to head for the airport in the early evening, spending the night there. This would save us many Euros. The hotel agreed to hold our luggage for us, and on our return from the day's exertions, we reclaimed it and found a bus for the train station. Things seemed to pretty much go according to plan. But an airport (even Amsterdam's Schiphol, which is pretty nice) is a very boring place in the middle of the night (nearly all the shops are closed, and the place is full of half-awake people), and an uncomfortable place to try to sleep.


Would we do this again? Hard to say. (How many Euros?) Eventually there was an announcement of which gate our flight would be leaving from. We'd long since exhausted the short list of amusements in our present location, so we headed for the gate. We seemed to have beaten the rush.

But eventually people started showing up, the plane arrived and we all boarded. We had a nice view of the Dutch sunrise through the window, and we took off on schedule.


Which brings up the next complication in our getting-home procedure. In looking for a good fare, we found a deal with Swiss International Airlines. The catch (besides leaving at 7 AM) was that we would have to fly home by way of, well, Switzerland (Zurich to be exact). This wasn't exactly on the way home and would involve more sitting around in an airport, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The flight to Zurich took about an hour and a half and gave us some views of some interesting clouds, but was otherwise uneventful.

The terminal building at the Zurich airport (Flughafen Zürich) was pretty nice and had a decent selection of shops, selling things like watches and Swiss chocolate.


All the chocolate reminded Nella that she still had a little Belgian chocolate squirreled away, so we finished our Belgian chocolate, surrounded by Swiss chocolate.

But our marathon continued, with the time between flights being another four and a half hours (before even starting to cross the Atlantic). But eventually a plane taxied up to our gate and started loading up with luggage and supplies.


The plane took off on time, and at no point during the flight did it have to turn around and go back to anywhere, so we didn't really have anything to complain about (a little frustrating when you're tired and grouchy). We arrived back at LAX and called Philip to come take us home. I'm not sure what we looked like by this time, but it didn't keep Philip from asking questions about the trip. He seemed to have missed travelling with us, on some level. Maybe next trip.