Thursday, August 17, 2017

From NEC to KEC...

Last week I spent a few days in Birmingham at the Festival of Quilts but never had enough time to write about what was going on. I had a lovely time there, meeting many people, saw some wonderful quilts, although I did not get to go through the rows with the competition quilts at all, and then a long an interesting meeting of the EQA International Reps on Saturday.
Sunday morning I left Birmingham on a very early flight after having slept rather badly. I guess I don't travel as easily any more as I used to, certainly early morning departures seem to be a bit of a problem. Don't know whether I am afraid I might not wake up on time, or whether this time it was the special arrangement of getting back in the afternoon of one day and leaving for the States on the next morning... I used to be able to do things like that. The most extreme arrangement I had was when I spent the Millenium in New Zealand – remember the discussions whether computers would be able to change over into the new century without any problems? - and I did not know whether I would be able to get back to Europe at all. But I had to teach on January 1, at a quarter past two in the afternoon. And my plane landed in Munich around noon. Of course, they had lost my luggage and it had to be delivered to my home because I had to go to the university... I had deposited clothes in my office and went directly to the university from the station and only had minor problems keeping my eyes open during the class before I could go home (to a very cold apartment). I wouldn't have minded at all if the computer problem had actually happened and I could have stayed in New Zealand, but it didn't happen. In any case, that's many years ago and after this recent experience I have realized that I won't make such tight arrangements any more.
So on Sunday morning the airport in Birmingham was very busy and the line for security check seemed to go on forever. But it was nice to be walking around the piano which is standing in the middle of the hall, waiting to be played. That's when I regret that my piano playing is very much tied to sheet music. It would have been nice to just sit down and play.



At home I repacked my bags, took my child and left again the next morning. I had been a bit late with entering our ESTA-application, so lived through a scary moment at the airport when the employee almost would not let us check-in. But everything went well, we got on the plane and had a quiet flight. We flew through Philadelphia where we had another long and exhausting amount of security checks that seemed to go on forever and then another two hours of waiting for our connecting flight. 



So we were very tired upon arrival but have been enjoying ourselves in Louisville, KY since.
We have walked across the pedestrian bridge that used to be a railroad bridge and crosses the Ohio River into Indiana. 






We have had American style ice cream, seen a basketball and a baseball game, 


and today we went to the Kentucky State Fair. 




And it has started to rain a bit.


Everything is bigger in the USA...

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