Losing a Friend

I suppose at our age, it is rather inevitable that we will lose some of our friends and older family members. It doesn't make it any easier to know this. Just a few days after I finished scheduling all our posts about the European riverboat trip we received the awful news about our dearest friend in Japan.

"Sam" (a nickname he acquired in college) met Art at Bradley University in Peoria well over 50 years ago. Sam had been sent to the U.S. to learn English.

Sam and Art have been close friends throughout the years, visiting each other in Japan and in Illinois. We've hosted two of his children at our home during the summers.

With the advent of computers and email, it became easier for them to share their thoughts weekly, sometimes daily.

We'd told Sam that we'd be coming to Tokyo this June and he'd been excitedly planning what we could do together.

He knew about our spring European trip and told us that he and his wife would also be taking a similar riverboat trip just two weeks after us.

Then in January, his esophagus ruptured after a terrible cold. The doctors couldn't understand it because Sam doesn't drink or smoke. Both his parents lived into their 90s. He was healthy and so full of energy, still working part-time. His daughter emailed us that Sam would have to stay in the hospital for a month.

We were shocked. However, we still thought he'd be healed and be able to go on the riverboat trip in April.

But February and March came and went and he was still in the hospital. When we returned from our riverboat trip, we learned that he had fallen into a coma.

But still... there was hope.

And then... suddenly he was gone.

It didn't seem possible. Sam with the laughing eyes and infectious laugh. 

The funeral would be in a week's time.

Art walked about the house in a daze and then said, "Shall we go?"

I told him we had to do what he felt he had to do.

I sent a quick email to Sam's daughter asking if it would be all right for us to come and she said they would appreciate it.

However, going to a funeral in Japan is different from funerals in Hawaii. We were quickly learning just how different it was.

In Hawaii, men will wear subtle colored aloha shirts to funerals and women will wear darker hued clothing. People don't pay a lot of attention to the clothes.

In Japan, men must wear black suits with a matte black tie and matte black shoes. Women have to wear black dresses that go below the knees, be modestly covered, wear shoes with very low or no heels, black nylons, and possibly a string of pearls, but no other jewelry.

It took a bit of doing to go shopping for attire, buy tickets for the flight, book a hotel, make arrangements to leave and pack in less than a week. Luckily, Hawaiian Airlines was having a bundle package for a trip to Japan which worked out perfectly.

And then we were on our way.

We left at 3 PM on Mother's Day (Sunday) and arrived in Tokyo at 6:15 PM Monday after an 8 hour flight.

We were pleased with our accommodations. The room was small, but there was a queen sized bed, free breakfast buffet coupons during our stay and this amazing free use of a smartphone. They said we could use it for local and international calls and carry it with us during our entire stay.

I felt as though Sam was still looking out for us as he always did when we came to Japan.

Cattle Company Companions

Every month or two, we get together for dinner with special tai chi friends Terry, Craig, Myra and Cal. We traveled on the Viking Cruise with Terry and Craig.

Each couple takes turns finding a different, reasonably priced restaurant. It was our turn which I dread since we don't eat out at different places a lot. However, we opted for Cattle Company since I've heard other people enjoying their meal there.

The problem was getting the discount coupon in the Valpak that comes in the mail every so often. I was waiting for the coupon to come out in the Sunday paper, but it didn't. That's when Terry found the coupon on the Valpak website. We were relieved. Then the Valpak envelope of coupons arrived in the mail and suddenly we ALL had Cattle Company coupons even though one coupon was good for six people.

It's still not as inexpensive as the other places we've gone to, but we wanted to try it anyway.

I chose the artichoke starter. It was something we've never ordered at a restaurant before. The last time I was at Cattle company was over 40 years ago.

Art chose a salad for his side.

Art ordered the prime rib which he said was just OK and I had the baby back ribs which was very tender and quite flavorful. The grilled green beans were a bit hard and chewy, but the grilled asparagus was lovely. I couldn't finish it even with Art sampling some of it.

We shared the Sky High Mud Pie which was an ice cream pie. However, next time I think I will opt for what Myra and Cal got. Their Big Mountain Fudge cake was awesome and truly deserves the title of Decadent.

The corner table was absolutely ideal for our being able to hear each other and trade stories about our travels this spring.

We had a hard time ending the evening and spent almost three hours there.

Well, it will be Cal and Myra's turn next time. This will be fun!

Traveling Fake Apple Scam

I have no idea why we suddenly got so many scams and credit card problems while we were traveling in Europe. Is it because I was using the unsecured WiFi on the Viking ship?

At times I didn't know what to believe. At one point, when I checked my blog, some parts were coming out in Spanish. I was in Germany, for goodness sakes! Eventually, it switched back to English.

Then I got this text warning of some sort about someone trying to log into my device.

I saw that it was from Honduras and it was about an iPhone 7 which I don't have.

I'm used to email scams, but now I guess I have to worry about text message scams too. Arrrghhhh!

My senior brain often times has difficulty figuring out what is real and what is not. I get upgrade notices occasionally on my computer and I don't know whether it's real either.

It's a scary world out in cyber space.

Facebook's Messenger Scam

I haven't been using Facebook for the last several months. I just can't trust it. And yet, it's been hard to completely kill my account. So it was still open.. but just unused.

Then, the other day I got a friendly text message from my classmate through Facebook's Messenger app.

I had no reason to suspect it wasn't from my classmate.

But then...

Something just didn't feel right so I wrote her an email.

She answered that her Messenger app had been HACKED and that I shouldn't answer it.

Well, it was too late for that.

I already had.

So I just BLOCKED any more texts from her on the Messenger app and am now very leery of anything Facebook.

So I guess that does it.

I should be, might be terminating my Facebook account and with it would go Messenger and sadly, so many memories. What to do? What to do?

What can you trust anymore?

Day 20: Amsterdam to Honolulu

Our morning breakfast was quick and adequate. It was time to go home to Hawaii.

Unlike the SunTransfer driver who met us very late when we arrived at Schiphol, the driver this time was early, efficient, helpful and friendly.

This was our first experience loading our own luggage to be weighed for flight. One person ahead of us had to take their luggage out and remove things to lighten it to acceptable limits.

This clock is absolutely awesome. When we saw it at the NEMO Science Center I thought there was a real person behind the clock erasing the hands and then painting new hands to show the advancement of time.

It was an 11 hour flight from Amsterdam to Los Angeles which left at 1:15 PM! I watched FIVE movies! Here's what I thought of them.

* The Greatest Showman (A)
* Loving Vincent (B)
* Murder on the Orient Express (B)
* Mrs. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (C+)
* The Phantom Thread (D)
No, I can't sleep on airplane flights.

We transferred our luggage from KLM to Delta and said goodbye to Terry and Craig who went home on Hawaiian Airlines.

Then I watched 2.5 movies on the 5 hour 27 minute flight to Hawaii.
* Ferdinand (I wasn't even paying attention.)
* Breathe (B)
* Pitch Perfect (I was bored.)

Friends, Morris and Jane picked us up and we got home at 10:30 PM.  We went right to bed, totally exhausted. It was a great trip, but it was good to be home again.

Day 19: Keukenhof Gardens, Lisse

If you're not into flowers, this would be the blog post to skip over because Keukenhof is all about spring flowers.

We woke early so we could get to the gardens with the early morning sun.

We took a train to Schiphol Airport and then caught the bus to Keukenhof Gardens.

Incredibly, we stood right next to a couple from Illinois who lived in the same town that we lived in ten years ago.

What are the chances? 

Wow! We were back at Keukenhof after 10 years! This time, spring was late so there weren't quite as many tulips blooming. But the sun was out and it was wonderful!

There were fields of daffodils, hyacinths, crocuses and early blooming tulips in every color imaginable catching the early morning sun.

Rows of spring flowers were everywhere!

There were also tulips that needed to be deadheaded and tulips not yet in full bloom.

The windmill looked pretty among the daffodils and Arthur just had to pretend to pull out Excalibur.

The calliope added music to the garden atmosphere.

It was extremely difficult to stop taking photos. I was maxing out my iPhone battery.

If you compare the photo we took 10 years ago to the one taken this year, you can see the difference in season.

There were lots of amaryllis bulbs too.

We entered the Willem Alexander greenhouse area where we had lunch earlier with Craig and Terry. We'd separated for the day because we knew we'd drive them crazy with our photo taking.

I'm sorry... There's just a few more photos to go. We took over 7,300 photos on this European trip. Sigh...

 There was a jaw dropping assortment of different varieties of tulips!

There were also greenhouses for orchids and roses, but we were getting too tired.

We caught the 4:30 bus back to Schiphol Airport.

We had a surprisingly wonderful dinner at the airport Per Tutti eatery.

My pizza had lots of anchovies and olives! My favorites! Art had a vegetarian lasagna.

A little more shopping and we returned to our hotel to get ready for our return to Hawaii.

Day 18: Van Gogh Museum, Dam Square

Since our Van Gogh Museum ticket was for 11:30 we decided to take a walk to the Lidl supermarket to replenish our breakfast supplies.

Terry and Craig were always at our door at the appointed time.

Somehow I was always in the bathroom. Tsk!

Shopping at the Lidl supermarket was fun. I loved the little rolling shopping basket. It was hard to choose which pastry to buy. So many pastries, so little time.

Here we are, back at Museumplein and the sun was out. Yay!

Even the cherry blossoms were blooming!

They are VERY strict at the Van Gogh Museum. Unlike the Rijksmuseum, photography is NOT allowed and they don't let you into the museum until the exact time of your ticket.

We had a little fun while waiting for our time to go in and then had lunch in the museum.

 There was a huge exhibit about the influence of Japanese woodblock prints on Van Gogh. Since Art loves Hiroshige and Hokusai, this was loads of fun for him.

It was fascinating to read about Van Gogh's life. There's so much I didn't know.

There are questions about his suicide and whether it really was a suicide. For one thing, he supposedly shot himself in the stomach and then managed to walk home wounded from the fields. He died a couple of days later with his brother, Theo by his side. Theo died a few months later heartbroken.

The angle of the bullet didn't make sense or the fact that he would shoot himself in the stomach. There is speculation that it might have been an accident and he was protecting that person by saying he'd done it himself.

I guess we'll never know.

I was surprised to see all kinds of souvenirs made with images of Van Gogh's painting of the almond blossoms.

I wrote a post about falling in love with this $10 museum poster and then spending $160 to have it framed because it was a nonstandard size. I don't recall there being so many souvenirs with the almond blossom image on it 10 years ago.

We were drawn to the fancy Magna Plaza and managed to do a bit more gift shopping.

We returned to Dam Square in daylight to explore the famous area.

It was a lucky thing Terry reminded me that I was going to look for Voltaren (topical Diclofenac) in Europe since it's only by prescription in the U.S. and very, very expensive. There are several loved ones who have the occasional aches and pains. And yes, I did warn them not to take ibuprofen when applying the cream.


We passed by this store with a long, long line waiting for oubliehoorn so of course, we had to try it.

It was a light textured mixture of ice cream and whipped cream. Ummm...

It was OK.

Dinner was at an Italian grill. It was quite good actually, and the service was quick and friendly.

And now came the day we were waiting for.

Keukenhof!

We didn't know what to expect because temperatures had still not warmed enough to encourage all the tulips to bloom.

We would see.

Day 17: Museum Market, Bloemenmarkt, Science Center, Red Light District

It was Sunday. We had our usual quick breakfast in our room and was off to our tram stop.

This time we decided to buy a 2 day tram/bus ticket for 12.50 Euros.

Once again, we caught the tram to Museumplein. The Van Gogh Museum is right next to the Rijksmuseum where we'd been the day before.

Would you believe that just like the canal ride, we were told that you had to buy your tickets ONLINE?!? All the tickets for that day were sold out. There was a long line of people being told the same thing.

Arrrghhhh!

I stood there for about 15 minutes with my cellphone, ordering tickets for the following day's earliest time slot which was 11:30.

Finishing that chore, we walked over to the Rijksmuseum, used the bathroom and then went to the restaurant to grab a quick snack.

It's strange, but I have really lovely memories of that time.  I don't know why it struck me exactly. We were just taking a lovely breather... relaxing... with delicious, fresh croissants and perfect hot chocolate.... with no real time table. I loved it. I really loved it.

When we stepped outside we saw that we'd managed to walk right into the monthly Museum Market. The entire field was full of booths selling different kinds of delicious food, crafts, artwork and other fun souvenirs. We had to buy a cute bib for our grandson from this woman who said her last name was rooster in Dutch so she took the name Kukeleku for her handsewn items. Kukeleku is Cock-a-Doodle-Doo in Dutch.

I just had to throw in another tulip photo because the raindrops looked so pretty on the blooms.

We took the #5 tram to the Bloemenmarkt at the Koningsplein stop. There's a TON of souvenir and flower shops there, mixed in with a lot of cannabis seeds, cookies, candies, etc.

And then it was time to find a place to have lunch.

We saw several people holding containers from this shop so we had to try it.

Craig and Terry liked their selection very much. We were OK with ours.

We'd read that the NEMO Science Museum (16.50 Euros) was a great place to visit so we decided to try it. It was such a cloudy, rainy day that we thought it would be a good place to while away some time.

It was fun being a kid again.

It was raining hard when the museum was closing. They passed out free raincoats to everyone which was really nice.

OK...

I admit it.

Amsterdam is famous for the Red Light District and on the way there we passed this ummm... museum. As Terry said, "If it weren't only 5 Euros we wouldn't have gone in."

Art and I had been there 10 years ago and I was so shocked that I kept my eyes down or shaded almost the entire time.

This time... being older... most of it was rather repetitive and redundant.

Dinner was at a Kabob House where we had Schwarma wraps.

There were tons of tourists flocking around the Red Light District. We saw ladies of the night in front of red curtained windows plying their trade. A few girls were standing in their windows with slinky clothing tapping away at their cellphones. It was rather funny actually.

We walked through Dam Square and headed back to our hotel on the tram.

It was a very fun day. It may not have gone exactly as planned, but was perhaps even better for the unexpected enjoyment.

MESSAGE TO BLOGGER FRIENDS:

Sometimes your life can take crazy turns. I have a couple more weeks of blog posts already scheduled about our trip and return.

However, soon after I wrote those posts, we got the horrible news that our dearest friend in Japan had died. Art had known "Sam" for over 50 years and felt he had to go to the funeral to say goodbye.

We returned this past Friday and would you believe on Saturday, I fell going up the stairs? I have managed to fracture my left humerus (long bone from shoulder to elbow) in two places (or was it 3?). Art is the BEST caregiver around but the pain when I move a certain way is excruciating.

Depending on how quickly I heal, I'll be sure to tell you all about it.