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Matt and I got up early, did our bathroom and breakfast routines, packed
up our panniers and stuffed them into the duffel bags for our trip back.
The posters seemed to be getting a little worse for wear, even though they
had been packed into a triangular cardboard tube. We hiked over to the Leidseplein
and caught a tram to the train station. I first tried to figure out how
to use one of the automated machines to get train tickets, but gave up on
that and went to a window with a real person behind it. In a matter of minutes
we had our tickets and headed to the platform the nice young lady at the
ticket counter pointed us toward. Another short wait and we were on the
train to Schiphol.
At the airport we found a tremendously long line to check in, but it moved
along at a reasonable rate of speed. We did encounter one problem at the
United ticket counter when we found United had changed my itinerary, putting
me on a different flight on one leg of our trip to make a more convenient
connection, but had not changed Matt's itinerary. We said we would like
to travel together, though it was no big deal since we would travel part
of the way together and get to our destination at the same time. They spent
about a half-hour working something out, putting Matt on my flights (it
turned out that, on the flight they put Matt on, they put us both in seats
at the front of our section of coach, near the door, so we really had a
lot of legroom.) Anyway, we were glad we had allowed plenty of time for
getting through the customs and checkin process. And we still had some time
to wander the terminal before our flight.
In Washington D.C. we had to go through customs. Matt and I got into
different lines, showed our passports to the officials, then met where
we had to pick up our duffel bags. Matt mentioned he saw my name on a
slip of paper on the desk of the official he had talked to, but I didn't
think much about it until this officer approaches me asks me to come with
him. Matt and I both go and sit in this big room while we watch 3 officials
study us and my passport. After a short discussion amongst themselves,
they simply said thank you, here's your passport, you can go now. By now
we were the last to pick up our bags, so that must have set off mental
alarms somewhere, and consequently we were asked to open up our duffel
bags (which were padlocked), take out and open up our panniers. So it
was good not to have any illegal tulip bulbs.
The reminder of the trip was uneventful, and we arrived home on time,
with many memories and stories to share.
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Day 7 - Back to Amsterdam 
