Friday, October 24, 2014

You arrive alone... you leave alone

After a night of toasts and hugs and address swapping, we all managed to slog off to bed by 23:00.  Anet, Karen and I had a final beer and closed the bar (we started the tour with two jugs of wine at our first dinner... how fitting).  Most of my fellow travelers had early a.m. flights, which meant they were leaving the hotel from 4-7 a.m.  Way too early for my sorry American ass.
I slept in till 8:30 and had a meager breakfast @ 9:00.  Really did not feel like eating.  Not a soul from the tour was in the breakfast room... just a bunch of englanders and mega germans (the 6'4" female types).  It left me wanting... just one more bus ride, one more life experience conversation, one more laugh.  Instead, I felt like one of those burnouts at Woodstock, scavenging thru the garbage while Jimi played the Star Spangled Banner.
I did see Laurie as I wondered out to the street.  Linda too.  We wished each other safe trips home, as I wandered out of the hotel,  to a nameless street, joining the masses on their way to work... just another face in the crowd.  
So I have an hour and a half to kill.  My shuttle arrives at 11:45 for the trip to OPO, the Porto airport.  A 14:50 flight (how civilized) to AMS, for two nights at near the airport.

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