Saturday, August 27th
As previously discussed, Bob dropped V and i off at SFO around 10:15am, and we lugged our two suitcases, one duffel bag, one messenger bag, and one poster tube inside to check in. By 3pm we were in Dallas, and a scant nine hours later we arrived at London's Gatwick Airport. I spent most of my time watching the horrible Monster in Law and the much more acceptable the Interpreter, and finishing David Sedaris's Me Talk Pretty One Day, a collection of sometimes annoying, sometimes insightful rants. Interestingly the second half of the book focused on Sedaris's life as an expatriate in Paris.

Sunday, August 28th
After taking the Gatwick Express to central London and Victoria Station, we transferred to the tube (still bearing all our assorted luggage). Temporarily thwarted by a lack of working ticket machines, we made it onto the train and transferred once in our journey to Old Street. From there, it was a five minute walk to our old friend and English host Lucy's flat. We stayed awake for an afternoon jaunt through Camden. In the evening, i managed to limit myself to two half-hour snooze sessions while watching cricket with Lucy, while Veronica succumbed to a four hour nap. We then had a late Thai dinner before collapsing completely.

Monday, August 29th
Refreshed from our travels (although V professed to some lingering jet lag and disorientation), Lucy, V, and i bought tickets to the London Eye online and headed toward the Thames. As it was a bank holiday and London was an atypical 85°F and sunny, we feared huge crowds in the heart of the city, but were perplexed to find everything quite moderately populated. We were in our "viewing capsule" on the huge ferris wheel within five minutes of our arrival, and had a great view of the city. From there, we walked through Westminster to see the Abbey and Parliament, before i gave in to my footie compulsions and directed us towards Fulham for my mandatory visit to Chelsea. The place has undergone quite a renovation since my last visit in 2001, obviously spurred by Roman Abramovich's huge investment in the club. Fulham Broadway tube station is now a huge mall, with the old station converted into a TGI Friday's. I spent £150 on new kits for myself and Michael, and two track tops for myself. We then stopped for a late tapas lunch in Chelsea, before heading over to Piccadilly Circus and on to Covent Garden for some shopping. Meeting up with Lucy's brother, having arrived home after a weekend in Liverpool, we met up with V's friend Ant (aka DJ Scissorkicks) at a pub near Old Street for dinner and drinks.

Tuesday, August 30th
V was suffering from blisters incurred by walking all over London in flip flops, but she managed alright by switching to Docs. Our last full day in London, Lucy and Veronica again put up with my touristy inclinations and took me to the Tower of London. A really impressive collection of history, and certainly way more to see than we could manage in our three hours there. We again ended up in Covent Garden to shop, while i tried to get rid of an outdated £10 note (brought from home where V or i had kept it from a previous trip). The differences between it and the current version were minimal, but every time i tried to pass it off i got the impression i was about to be arrested for counterfeiting. From there we headed to Camden to have drinks in a local pub with Jeremy, in London for business/pleasure. Our voyage back to Old Street went via Brick Lane, the Indian mecca of London, where we had a great meal at a restaurant that may or may not have been the one recommended to us by several people.

Wednesday, August 31st
Wishing a fond farewell to Lucy, V and i bussed our luggage to Waterloo Station to catch the Eurostar train through the chunnel to Paris. I had my first baguette not five minutes after the train emerged on the French side of the channel, and an hour later we arrived at Gare du Nord. No sooner than we entered the metro station, we were beset by some sneak eager to help us part with our money, by "helping" us buy train tickets. We were fiddling with the machine to get a ticket to St. Michel de Notre Dame, when he offered his assistance and began punching buttons. Despite my piss-poor memory of my high school French, i still was able to deduce he was selecting high-price, long-distance rail tickets. V told him she was going to the bathroom to get rid of him, and we managed ourselves thereafter. The hot and sweaty Paris metro took us to St. Michel, where we walked (again carrying way too much luggage) to our hotel in the Rive Gauche. Great location, lousy room ... barely bigger than our double bed. We relaxed there for the afternoon, before walking out in the humid evening to see the nearby Notre Dame. We had a pizza dinner, where i again embarassed myself with my inadequate French.

Thursday, September 1st
We slept in a bit before setting out with the expressed destination of l'Arc de Triomphe. We made it across Ile de la Cité and towards the Louvre before stopping for lunch at the Hippopotamus Café, a Fridays-esque chain without the kitsch. Lunch consisted of seared burgers (burnt outside, raw inside) which had Veronica and i feeling lousy shortly thereafter. My French was not improving ... i kept using the wrong phrases for the occasion, with "c'est" ("this is") popping up all over the place. Somehow "merci" and "s'il vous plaît" were getting interchanged as well. I was incredibly intimidated by waiters in particular, feeling more comfortable to force Veronica (with no knowledge of French) to play the annoying American tourist. Anyhow, we continued walking west across Paris, passing l'Opéra and St. Augustin before hitting the Champs-Elysées and finally reaching the Arc. One of my favorite Paris sites from my previous visit in 1989, the Arc is truly massive and affords a great view at the top. We did a little shopping before continuing our trek south across the Seine, reaching the Eiffel Tower after nightfall. We went to the top, with Veronica especially freaked by the lower elevators that take you up the girders at an angle. Exhausted, we ended our walking tour of the city by cabbing it back to the Rive Gauche. We had a late dinner at a fantastic Greek place, enticed by the savory meat skewers in the window and the host's offer of a free drink.

Friday, September 2nd
Our excursions of the previous day must've worn us out, because we didn't make it out of our hotel until 4pm. We had a late late lunch at the Maison de Gyros in the Quartier Latin before taking the metro to the Gare du Nord to book our train to Amsterdam for that Sunday. We then continued the torture of our feet by walking up to Montmartre and the beautiful church-on-the-hill Sacré-Coeur. This area is featured in the movie Amelie, which i recognized quickly. What i didn't expect were the legions of panhandlers and grifters in the park below the church. V and i literally had to fight off hordes of men trying to tie some kind of friendship bracelet on our fingers. When V was cornered by an artist while we observed the rear of the church, she allowed him to sketch her. Naturally i was targeted by another chalk artist shortly thereafter, and we enjoyed conversing with the two and seeing their work. I'll scan them and put them up tonight. Despite their initial assurances of their intentions, they then told us it would be 50 €. I told them all i could pay was 15 €, to which they asked to make it 20 € so they could split it evenly. I angered Veronica by giving them a little more change to bring the final price up to ~18 €. At that point Montmartre's charm had worn off, and we took the metro over to the Champs-Elysées where V bought a swank pair of new Alain Mikli eyeglass frames she'd spotted the day before, and we had a mediocre dinner at a bistro along the avenue. We then walked away from the Arc down the avenue to have a look at the Egyptian obelisk in the Place de la Concorde, before hailing a taxi and heading back to our hotel.

Saturday, September 3rd
We planned to hit the Louvre on our last full day in Paris, but V was feeling pretty lousy so we delayed that excursion for next time and instead just visited the much closer Saint-Chapelle on the Ile de la Cité. A beautiful gothic church nestled inside the Palais of Justice, featuring immense stained glass panel windows telling the first several books of the bible. I took 30 photos or so, and could've taken many more. I remember spotting this cathedral in a National Geographic before coming to Paris in high school, and asking my hosts to take me there. Saint-Chapelle and Sacré-Coeur were my two favorite Paris sights this time round. After that, we headed back to the Hotel Moderne Saint Germain so V could recover a bit. We whiled away the afternoon watching the MTV Video Music Awards, one of the few non-dubbed programs on French TV. We had a late night dinner at the L'Authre Bistro across the street, where my bad mojo with waiters continued. This time, in addition to trying to communicate poorly in French (here i ordered a "ham OR cheese sandwich" as if it were something in and of itself), i for some reason kept trying to give the menus back to the waiter after ordering, despite them being intended to remain on the table. After doing this a second time, the waiter literally threw it at a nearby empty table. Eek.

Sunday, September 4th
Goodbye to Paris, beautiful sights and iffy personal interactions, and on to Amsterdam. My misadventures in French ended on a positive note as i successfully argued with our non-English speaking cabbie that he had shortchanged us by 10 € on our drive to Gare du Nord. Although this did eventually involve me writing the subtraction problem 50 - 14 = 36 on a piece of paper. It seems i bought first class rail passes for our trip (no wonder they were so expensive!), so we got the royal treatment on the 4 hour trip to Amsterdam. I noticed that the man opposite our seats had a Feyenoord Rotterdam bag with the number 21 on it, and later i eavesdropped him on the phone discussing his manager. He got off at the Rotterdam stop, and looking at the Feyenoord roster i see number 21 is striker Salomon Kalou, who looks very much like our neighbor on the trip. Hob-nobbing in first class! We arrived in Amsterdam and cabbed to our hotel near the Tropenmuseum in the eastern portion of the city. Much nicer than the Moderne Saint Germain, although Veronica did remark that everything in the room looks like it came from Ikea. Scared of "Amsterdam after dark" by an assortment of travel books warning of the horrors that can befall you in the wrong part of town, we opted to have dinner in the hotel and hang out for the evening.

Monday, September 5th
Our first real day in Amsterdam began with breakfast at the hotel at 9am, then reverted back to bed. We left the hotel around 12:30pm and began walking towards the city center. I didn't get many pictures of Amsterdam, in part because i extrapolated from the travel guides warnings not to photograph women in the red light district to not photographing anything. Amsterdam had a very low key atmosphere, in stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of London and Paris. We explored various portions of the city, seeing a lot but not focusing on anything in great detail.

Tuesday, September 6th
We opted to check out the Amsterdam zoo (Artis), not far from our hotel, on our last day in Amsterdam. A decidedly wholesome activity compared with how most twenty- and thirty-somethings occupy themselves in the liberal Dutch capital. Making our way towards the city center afterwards, we again meandered around, stopping for fantastic tapas. During dinner i spent a while observing the workings of the coffee shop across the street, trying to figure out the mechanics of buying one of the things Amsterdam is known for. I was all set to do so after dinner, until we learned the restaurant didn't take credit cards and i had to use all of our cash to pay the check. We wandered around for a while before we found an ATM, by then far away from the shop i had scoped out. We passed others, but my mojo was dashed and i chickened out.

Wednesday, September 7th
On to Cologne, effectively ending the honeymoon as i was due to attend the Society for Molecular Imaging meeting beginning that evening. We again took a first class train, although this time i was on edge for the journey as we didn't have specifically-reserved seats and i kept expecting someone to claim ours at each stop. It didn't happen, thankfully. During the trip V watched the TV on the back of the seat in front of us, and saw an image of a fantastic gothic cathedral. She asked me where it was, which i didn't know. She then said we should see that next time. Arriving in Cologne, a city neither of us knew much about, we were amazed to find said cathedral just in front of the train station. We hopped in a taxi, too tired to try to figure out where our hotel was on our own. The taxi driver looked at the address i gave him a bit quizzically, then pulled out. He literally drove a block down the street, made a U-turn, and came a half-block back before stopping in front of our hotel. Doh. However, inside the concierge told me they had no reservation under my name. Showing him the printout of the internet reservation i'd made, he told me the hotel had no contract with the company, something called hotel-rates.com. Uh oh. He was very nice however, and took me to the internet café next door so i could find out what was going on. Getting their customer service phone number, i called and had the concierge talk to them. They arranged to have the reservation faxed over, but as i waited at the desk nothing came. I was seriously agitated, but not with the concierge. He however must've thought i was furious as he decided to give me a room, then changed his mind and gave me a better room, then gave me two drink tickets for the bar. V and i went upstairs, but i remained on edge as there was still no proof of my reservation. I called customer service again an hour later, and to my great relief was informed that the reservation had been faxed and everything was set with the hotel. V and i then got horribly lost trying to walk to the opening reception of my meeting, eventually hopping in a cab. We met up with my old Boston compatriots and had dinner in the sweltering basement of the Gürzenich Kongress.

Thursday, September 8th
V was on her own as i headed to the meeting. As in years past i was happy with my interactions at the meeting, although to be honest there was not as much "super-exciting" stuff as previously. After i returned from the day's events that evening, i took V down the Schildergasse, a shopping area near the conference center featuring a building with an ice cream cone stuffed on one of the corners, and an older tower with two happy-looking horse heads sticking out of an upper window. We dined at a nearby pub, having a traditional sausage and sauerkraut meal augmented by the local standard beer Kölsch.

Friday, September 9th
More meeting for me, although V stopped by for lunch with my postdoc Ivana and i at an Argentinian restaurant. That evening was the SMI member's event, a dinner cruise on the Rhine. The weather threatened rain, but luckily it held off. Ivana, Veronica, and i had a good meal with Antoine, Kim, and Steve, a few newer additions to my old lab in Boston. We then headed out to the top deck of the boat to sightsee, although i missed much of it as i kept running into old friends from the east coast. Can't lose either way.

Saturday, September 10th
Last day of the meeting, and not a moment too soon as my energy reserves were more or less tapped at this point. Ivana had flown home that morning, so i mostly flew solo that day at the meeting. I had several reassuring conversations with colleagues about my current work, and came up with a host of new ideas for further work while bored during one of the plenary lectures. A gala dinner and concert at the Gürzenich ended the meeting. V and i showed up about 15 minutes late and spent a while trying to locate a table with openings for us. Koji, another old friend (from UCSF, not Boston), noticed our plight and was kind enough to find chairs for us and make space at his table. We had a good time over dinner and the concert meeting his cohorts at Gamma Medica.

Sunday, September 11th
Our free day in Cologne was also unfortunately the day the incredibly hot weather we'd experienced in Europe soured and turned to rain. It was also the day of the Cologne marathon, which we saw in pieces while walking around the city. Despite not being in the forefront of our consciousness prior to the trip, both V and i as well as my friends at the meeting were all impressed with the city and its friendly citizens and wealth of culture. Because of the weather we chose not to ascend the impressive Cologne Cathedral spires, and instead meandered around for random sightseeing. Late that evening we packed for our return voyage, a process that unfortunately revealed Veronica had lost her wallet sometime that day. She called and cancelled all her credit cards, which thankfully had not been abused since their disappearance. We surmise it must've happened when we had lunch, but of course the restaurant was closed by that point and would not open before we headed to the airport the next morning. Oh well ... the silver lining i collected was that at least it happened at the end and not the beginning of the trip.

Monday, September 12th
Only fourteen hours of flying time stood between us and home. First up was a one hour flight on Easyjet from Cologne/Bonn Airport to London Gatwick. There we gathered our luggage, went through customs, and checked in for our American Airlines flight to Dallas and on to SF. We made it into the terminal in time for V to pick up a few cd's at HMV (she was ashamed she had not yet gone record shopping on the trip), but were then forced to run off to the gate to board. The flight to Dallas was not as comfortable as the reverse direction, in part because the plane was not equipped with the individual TV monitors allowing you to choose what movies you want to watch. Therefore, instead of getting to see the Will Ferrell soccer comedy Kicking and Screaming promised in the AA magazine, i had to settle for the mostly boring Madagascar and the more entertaining and also animated Robots. I'm getting the impression that the CGI animation studios are making the same movie over and over with different casts (animals, robots, fish, toys, birds, ...). I spent most of the flight reading Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, one of the few Tom Robbins novels i hadn't yet checked out. I finished it halfway through our flight from Dallas to SF (by which time my patience for being on a plane had more or less completely evaporated). Robbins's novels seem to vary from explicit philisophical discourse with a plot loosely laid on top (Cowgirls) to intricate stories with definite if subtle philosophical messages (Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas), and everything in between. I find the former too heavy-handed, particularly Cowgirls as it was written in the late 60's/early 70's and hence has a lot of poorly-conceived but fervently-delivered hippyish ideas in it. Arriving finally at SFO at 7:10pm, we grabbed our luggage, headed out to meet Bob, and went home to two near-rapturous dogs who no doubt thought we were gone forever.

Photos of the entire epic can be found on the photos page. It was a great trip, but it's always good to come home.