Entry 19, February 25, Landing in Town during my First Fictious European Vacation

I've had one of those not great days today. I have been frustrated today over one of the healthcare continuum's I had to deal with. So as I update my blog, I decided to write about something a little less annoying- My First Fictious European Vacation. I had written in my last blog how I came into the money to afford it.

It was 1988 and I was living in Arlington, Ma, one town down from Cambridge. I had 2 ficitious friends from Boston that had moved back to the Netherlands. I called them ficitious at the time as most people in my family had not met them nor anyone else I knew on my side of the US. My Nanny (my grandmother on my mother's side) and my cousin Lindsay were actually the first to people I knew, which drove some of my family nuts.

I had been invited to go out and visit my friends in Holland and upon receiving the money from my Dad's Mother's inheritance, I purchased a ticket to the Netherlands. I informed my family at the time, that I was going to the Netherlands to visit my ficitious friends and they said where. I said I was not sure. Two days before the flight flew out of Logan a bomb went off in the center of Madrid. It freaked my parents out although Madrid was in Spain not Holland. They called me from Michigan frantically, telling to be very very careful while I was in Europe.

I was picked up by fictious friends at Schipol Airport with the worst JET LAG. This lasted at least 2-3 days, although it just may have felt that way. It was about 3:00am, and I had been to a couple of bars in Amsterdam already. I left for the bathroom when all of a sudden I heard on a pay phone: "Hello Verne, this is a friend a Brian's. We just want you to know we just picked him out of the gutter." I ran out of the bathroom and I guess my Mom had then picked up the phone. My other friend picked up the receiver and said loudly in the background, "hurry up Brian, we're off to the red light district". Of course, when my not as fictious friends handed me the phone, my Mom with panic in her voice said was everything alright. I calmed her down while trying not to breakout laughing. We ended up hanging out in town til 4-5 am in the morning and walked back to my friends apartment. Between the Jet Lag and the late night I had a major headache the next day but it was satisfying.


Brian