柳兰对欧洲的向往始于她高中时读的小人书版《希腊神话》，大学时读荷马史诗更加加深了柳兰对欧洲文化的迷恋，那种自由的心灵，与自然无限接近的艺术和美，都让她神往。但是直到今年才实现了前往欧洲的愿望，本来想从希腊开始，走意大利，去法国，看看那些历史走过的轨迹， 由于季节和时间的关系， 我们最后选择了中欧几国，并将欧洲分成了5个大块，打算分不同的时间去体验。这次我们去过的地方是：巴黎，布鲁塞尔，阿姆斯特丹，柏林，慕尼黑，菲森，维尔茨堡，罗滕堡和萨尔茨堡。柳兰的个人的博客里将连续记载她的杂记，欢迎阅读。

Catherine’s fascination with Europe began in high school when she read comics about Greek mythology, and strengthened when she read Homer’s epics in college. She was attracted by the free spirit and the beauty and art so close to nature. But she wasn’t able to realize her dream of traveling to Europe until this year. Originally, she wanted to start from Greece, then Italy, then France, to follow the path of history, but because it’s hot in the summer and time was limited, we finally chose a few countries in central Europe. Catherine has divided Europe into five parts and plans to visit them all in coming years. On this trip we went to Paris, Brussuls, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Füssen, Würzburg, Rothenburg, and Salzburg. Catherine will be writing some travel articles on her personal blog (in Chinese), and you’re welcome to read them and share your feelings.

I had a bad morning.

I set my alarm to go off at 5:15, but snoozed it until 5:30. I was getting up so early because I needed to catch a 7:25 plane to Changsha. I caught a cab at about 6:15. It usually takes about 30 minutes to get from our home to the airport, but today I didn’t get until the airport until 6:50. Hmmm… that’s only 35 minutes, but it sure seemed like longer when I was waiting in traffic. Anyway, I ran into the airport, looked at the display to see where to check in, looked at my watch (6:53), ran to the check-in line, they told me to go to the front of the line, I ran to the front of the line, they pointed at the clock, which read 6:55, which is when check-in closes. Sigh.

The background on this is that as of a couple months ago I had never missed a flight in my life (I don’t think), but this is the second time in the last couple of months that I’ve been one minute late to catch a flight to Changsha.

I was pretty upset with myself. What if I’d… not hit the snooze button, eaten breakfast in the cab on the way, ran instead of walked from my apartment to the street, printed out my boarding pass at home.

I went to change my ticket to a later flight and was informed that there were no tickets available until 7pm. This was bad, because I was due to give two lectures to 500+ students tonight in Changsha. I went to the standby counter to sign up for standby, where they informed me that there were still four tickets left on a 12:45 flight, and that I should run over to the ticket counter to change my ticket. I ran over to the ticket counter and was informed that there were once again no tickets. I went back to the standby counter and they told me that yes, there were no tickets. I’m not sure who bought the four tickets during the 90 second period. So I signed up for standby, and then went back to the ticket counter, where a seat on a 5pm flight had opened up. I called the office, and they called the travel agent, who said that there were tickets available on the 12:45 flight. I ran back over to the ticket counter and switched to the 12:45 flight. I’ll make the lectures tonight.

Everything seemed wonderful until Catherine called and told me that I had locked her in at home. Not only had I locked her in, but I’d left my key in the door, which means that anyone could have walked in while she was sleeping this morning. Understandably, she wasn’t happy. Fortunately, one of the neighbors was still at home and went over to unlock her.

After all that, I’ve actually had a pretty productive morning working on the wireless at the airport UBC coffee. That’s where the question mark came from. Maybe it’s been a good morning.

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