Journal / Travels / Travels · July 31, 2023

Thursday, July 27, 2023. En route, Portland to Amsterdam

The Portland Airport experience this morning was about as calm, uncrowded, and smooth as I’ve ever seen. The new version of the Portland Airport carpet just isn’t quite the same, though. I was a fan of the turquoise. I even have a pair of Portland Airport carpet patterned socks, but I can’t wear them to the Portland Airport because I have to wear my Sockwell compression socks when I fly to keep my granny veins from getting all riled up.

The Seattle Airport is quiet, too. I wonder why. The Denver Airport a couple of weeks ago was jam-packed. In a pleasant coincidence, our gate to board our flight to Amsterdam is right across from the Mountain Bar. We had some incredibly good fries there (and I’m not a very hearty French Fry eater). And we have time for lunch before we go.

I have a feeling this is is the calm before the storm. We have a very tight connection in Amsterdam, and we have to go through passport control before flying on to Riga, Latvia tomorrow morning.

I loaded some Sebelius symphonies onto my phone to try to help me doze during the long overnight flight. Sebelius is a Finnish composer and Bill and I both love his works. The first time I heard his 2nd Symphony, not long after I met Bill, I was completely transported.

During the flight from Portland to Seattle, I passed the time reading the Nordicana book Marianne found on the sale table at the Boulder Bookstore during our recent visit. We decided it would be a good passaround book during our tour.  From Tolkien’s trolls to The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo, there’s more Nordic influence in our lives than we realize.