Welcome back

We finally got back on our plane to Rome.

All went well, until the pilot said something like ‘ready for landing’ at that exact point Gaby started coughing and told me se saw starts in front of her eyes.

Then out of nowhere she made these sort of almost puking gestures, I got her some water and the lady next to me gave her like a coughdrop thingy or something.

She started closing her eyes a lot and generally stopped responding to anything, so I just kept shaking her and talking to her, hoping that the cough thingy wouldn’t cause her to suffocate..

I had pressed the stewardess button thingy and finally someone came, she came back with some sugar and water and then told us she had to strap herself in for landing…

Isn’t that just ridiculous? I thought those people were there just for these kind of things?

Anyway, after we landed, Gaby got hauled into an ambulance, leaving me with both our bags and not one bit of information about where they were taking her…

Finally after an hour or so I found her by going through several stupid procedures with multiple people who spoke English well enough so they shouldn’t have had problems directing me..

I found her at the first aid post inside the aiport and stayed with her a bit. Then she got transferred to some kind of weird hospital near the airport. I wasn’t allowed to come with her and I had no idea where they were going.

Only hours later I finally got off the airport myself, and when I got home and reached Gaby even she didn’t know where the hell she was.

Right now, she has to stay there till tomorrow, I need to go pick her up by then, it’s an hour by train, and we’re both not quite sure about the exact location of this hospital…

Up and down, back and forth

So My mother’s aunt, Tante Jet passed away last week. May she rest in peace.

Yesterday I flew back to Holland and was just in time (read: 3 minutes late) for the service,
due to a badly timed purse-loss in the Burger King that was on the way from the airport to the service.

It wasn’t a bad service. Or well, I did have some trouble with the last speaker. There were three speakers, her brother, who is just not a very good speaker, my aunt, who has taken care of her for the last years, and her niece, who surprisingly decided to end her speech with a prayer, while all who knew Tante Jet, know that she would not have appreciated that.

Anyway, it was a good enough service and we shared some great memories.

Today I’ll be flying back, packed with Dutch foods, Halloween and Sinterklaas stuff. I hope I can get the food through customs. I think it’s a load of crap that you can bring whatever you want if you drive your car there, but are restricted if you fly. I mean, it’s not explosives or anything, it’s just cheese and bread…