Michael Z. Williamson
A Five Day Whirlwind of Signing and Seeing

First, I need to thank the people who made this trip possible. Baen Books covered my airfare, and provided about 350 books for me to sign, and give away to the troops and families.

One night of my lodging was covered by USAF Morale, Welfare and Recreation, using Non-Appropriated funds. This is from user fees and donations, not tax dollars.

My fan, good friend and European Contingent Leader Werner Verboom helped with travel arrangements, and drove my daughter and I all over Germany and the Low Countries at high speed, with gas at about $7.50 per gallon. And you thought it was pricey here.

I covered the other meals, one night's lodging, two nights in a bed and breakfast, and my daughter's airfare.

So onto the narrative:

Morrigan and I flew from Indy to DC, then overnight to Schiphol, Amsterdam, arriving around 0730 local, or 2AM our time. I hurt badly, because I'm too tall to lean forward and sleep on the tray, and leaning back strains my shoulders. International flights are torture.

The Dutch Customs official seemed a little unsure about a teenage girl with a different last name going to Germany with me (she has my wife's last name), but signed off. Werner picked us up outside, and we were off. We stopped for breakfast at this very clean café that served us three eggs on top of ham on top of bread. Not great, but certainly not bad, and reasonably priced--$25 or so. According to Werner, this was a typical "truckers' dive" in Holland.

Holland looks like this:

Belgium looks like this:

They like to cram things close together.

Europe is small. In about two hours we were in Bastogne, which has a fantastic civilian cemetery. I've never seen anything like this, with family sepulchers side by side, most beautifully maintained and respected, some few neglected likely due to there being no descendants in the area. The village has these signed with a notice that repairs must be made or they will have to take action.

Across the street is the military barracks, which I still haven't seen, because they keep weird hours, and are closed on Fridays. However, I offer this from last year:

Downtown is the 101st Airborne Museum. It's rather neat to see original artifacts in various states of preservation/decay, including a lot of trench art. It was a slight letdown to realize I have most of the weapons they have on display.

Parachutes and camouflage covers sometimes got turned into clothing:

Trench art:

I want the bike:

Interesting to see the WWI trench knives still in use:

We were very low on gas, and this is a Werner thing. And Belgium has no gas stations. Even using a phone app, there were none near the freeway, and the one we finally found 25 km away was closed, but fortunately had credit card scanners, as we were down to 11 km range. Really. Talk about white knuckling.

From there we continued into tiny Luxembourg, and the US military cemetery. This is truly a profound place, and somewhere every American should visit. General George Patton chose to be buried at the front, with his men. I was born 22 years after his death, but it was a privilege to able to salute such a warrior, even now.

The German cemetery is only two kilometers away, and profoundly sad. There are a large number of markers for unknowns, everything is in dark granite, and they're all but forgotten. If you never knew grandpa, and he fought for the Nazis, why would you ever visit him? But he likely had no choice on the matter, if he didn't want himself and Grandma sentenced to a camp. They can't fly the Nazi flag, Germany will not acknowledge them, so they have their own specific cemetery flag. Yet even here, an occasional grave is cared for by relatives. I insisted we visit here, too, for both the contrast, and to offer at least a token of respect to men fallen in a terrible cause.

And an old farmhouse, between the two cemeteries. I don't know if it was damaged during the War or is just abandoned:

Editorial comment here: During the government shutdown of 2013, the cemetery was closed. The very nice retired couple who run it keep track of the visitor log book, coordinate with the maintenance, which is provided mostly by trusts and local volunteers. Little federal money is actually involved, and none that would necessitate closure. Especially as they were required to be in attendance, paid, to ensure the gate was locked and tell people they couldn't climb over the 3' wall to visit their relatives. I could tell from the lady's steely calm that she was very, very unhappy with that turn of events and order. Please note the cemeteries were not closed during any of the previous 9 shutdowns since 1976. This was a decision made by the Executive Branch to "Save money," except of course that since the two staff members had to be present anyway, there was no money saved. It was simply a means of sticking it to people as a temper tantrum. Hopefully our next president will be a man.

Meanwhile, in Germany:

The curry smelled pretty good, but we were in a hurry. It was a very nice Burger King, though, with couches and wireless and potted plants and tablecloths.

I've visited the Roman Porta Negra (The Black Gate) in Trier before, and this 2000 year old bridge. My daughter was a bit concerned about crossing it, but if it survived the Romans, the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Thirty Years War, the Franco-Prussian War, WWI, WWII and the Cold War, I'm cool with it.

And these other ruins from sometime. Europe in general is full of them.

From there it was on to Spangdahlem Air Base, lodging, and dinner. If you drive through Spangdahlem village at 1830, it looks as if it's 0300. Every light is off, every house dark, but then you turn the corner to Mom's Place.

Yes, the German restaurant is called Mom's Place. www.MomsPlace.de Mom's Place is full of Germans drinking beer, smoking, talking, and has waitresses who speak flawless English, as far as their English holds out. If you use words they don't know, there's suddenly a wordjam. But we were able to order Deergoulash, Hefeweizen, and some bread. Morrigan was a little surprised that teenagers can readily be served by their parents in Germany, but gamely tackled half her half liter, before passing it on to others. The venison and spaetzl got devoured. It was also cheaper than the steak. One of my fans graciously covered our meal.

And Mom's has real forged ironwork:

Then we went to fall over, because we'd been up almost 32 hours.

That was Friday.

Saturday was Sci Fi Con 2013, and it was a blast.

They fed us a great breakfast buffet with sausage, bacon, excellent scrambled eggs (not gooey), bread, juice, German milk (very creamy). We geared up and awaited the incoming crowds.

What I did not have was a sign noting the books were free, so we whomped one up while the opening ceremonies took place—the convention was all in one large hall.

I signed a lot of books. They went sporadically—one here, two there, three later. I insisted people stick to one book each, two by mid afternoon, no more than three at the end. Some of them would gladly have taken a copy of everything. I personalized most, including some to be forwarded to deployed troops. I even ran into two people I knew from my last deployment.

The Germans have a contingent of the 501st Legion, and had stormtroopers, rebel pilots, the works.

I even managed to get photos of them deploying from an MRAP.

Midafternoon, some Marines came in. It turned out they'd just arrived from Afghanistan, and their transport had a mechanical. Well, there are worse places to be stuck than Germany. We welcomed them home, gave them some books, entertained them.

My daughter had brought one of her guitars and did a little playing. I talked to the Sci Fi Show crew, and to Farva of Farvatoons.com.

Photo of Farva and Mrs Farva from last year:

Then a group of dedicated nutjobs put on armor, picked up real but blunt swords, and commenced a tournament, first one on one, then in melee. It resulted in some bruises, cuts, one shot to the groin, one strained knee that sent the man to the hospital and will take a bit of followup, and a lot of cheering. Competitors included two Austrians, two Luxembourgers and one American. This is not a pickup sport, these guys are trained, and the armor is tougher than historical variants.

Then they put up a Death Star piñata for one of the fighters to smash:

We wrapped up and went cheap for dinner, grabbing Pizza Hut and beer on base.

Oh, yes, there is a challenge coin for the event. It's big, and awesome:

We were up again at 8, had breakfast at the golf course restaurant, and Farva gifted me with a signed picture.

Then it was time to beat feet through Germany and Belgium back to Holland, at 130 km/hr where posted, and at 160 km/hr where not.

We stopped for a break in Belgium, and a local custom I'd forgotten caught me by surprise. I went in to use the restroom, had no trouble identifying the men's room (this can be a problem for Scots in America. I mean, the sign said "Laddies" and had a picture of a man in a kilt :). So I took care of business at the urinal, turned around, and there were two women washing their hands. Wrong room? No, I was in the men's room. And there was a women's room. But then I realized that all the washbowls were in the men's room. The women's room had only stalls. This is common in Europe, where they're far less bothered by such things. It just surprised me for a moment.

We reached Holland in low on gas, and short on time, but not that short. Werner passed a bunch of gas stations, and the "km to empty" dropped like a politician's confidence rating. We passed one a few blocks from his house, kept going, and reached his house. We grabbed some of Werner's things and dropped off valuables, and went back to the gas station, where the car's computer showed 5km to empty. Dude, seriously. The Low Countries refers to elevation, not fuel level.

From there, we went to The Hague to sign books at the American Book Center. They were very gracious and hospitable, treating us to a local cola and some cookies, both interestingly spiced. I signed a few books, met a couple of fans, and then we did some sightseeing.

First order of business was authentic donor kabob. If they don't speak Turkish, it's not authentic. I love this stuff and wish it was more available in my area. Shwarma, gyros, all of it, is endemic in Europe now, but hard to find in Flyover, USA. I do need to warn them, though—they have a growing population of Golden Tentacles and Burger Somethings. They need an exterminator quick—once those get settled, you never get rid of them. I do like the cafes with closed awnings and little gas braziers for heat and CO2.

Holland, like much of Europe, generally charges to use the restroom, or in the case of the McDonald's on the beach, has no public restroom. They do have free internet, though. We found a very nice restaurant, grabbed Dutch cocoa and a bathroom break, got photos of the blowing wind and sea, ignored the guy who didn't have the money for a bathroom so was making use of the outside of a building, passed by an entire row of Turkish restaurants including the "Miami Grill," and went back to Rotterdam.

Out of focus, but every one of those is a Turkish restaurant:

Yes, someone is parasailing at 48F.

They also have public urinals that sink into the street at night. No stall door, just a 6' merry go round looking thing with four funnels. No, I did not get pictures.

Our Bed and Breakfast was quite literally a person's house, as in a perfectly normal house, with two bedrooms converted to guest rooms, with a fantastic bathroom. We signed in, assured the hostess we had no intention of smoking or doing drugs, something I gather can be a problem, and went out for dinner.

Dewi Sri restaurant serves delicious, mindblowing Indonesian food. This stuff was amazing. You could taste the colonial repression from the former Dutch East Indies. Morrigan had curried goat, I had pork satay, and Werner had a half chicken in coconut cream. We had rice, noodles and some dark Dutch beer. Indonesian needs to catch on over here in a big way. Fantastic stuff.

I didn't sleep well that night. The pillow was too flat, and the heat was off at night. I like to sleep warm. But I logged on and kept track of people and things in between snoozes. Morrigan had a futon couch.

Monday morning, Morrigan and I cooked omelets and bakbacon for Werner, then we took a tour of the port. He's a scheduler for one of the shipping companies, so provided some supplemental commentary to the canned recording on the tour boat. Oh, we also had more cocoa and Dutch apple pie, which is almost a cake, and better than anything in the US.

Rotterdam is the third busiest port after Shanghai and Singapore. It didn't look it, until I realized we'd seen one small section of the upriver area. There's a lot more out toward the sea, and stuff goes from here all the way up to Switzerland and Germany via boat and canal. There are lots of small family-owned boats plying the water.

A water taxi:

Dredging operations:

Rotterdam likes weird buildings:

Notice the scrolling light art:

And some historical stuff:

The souvenirs in the attached shop were all overpriced, and mostly featured pot leaves and sex toys. That's a hell of a combination to be famous for. We didn't buy any.

At Werner's, we watched Star Trek: Into Darkness, ate a traditional pork stew he made, greeted his wife Cathy and his father in law, and helped entertain the 6 month old twins.

Our hostess had a proper neck pillow on hand, and my last night of sleep was a good one.

As to why they're called the Netherlands,or Low Countries:

Ah, Amsterdam. The primary road to the airport terminal was closed while one side was rebuilt. The other carriageway could have been turned into a one way in or out, but no, they closed that, too. They diverted all traffic onto one lane the long way around the airport. Oh, and there were no signs warning of this on the freeway. Werner finally managed a 3 point turn on a lane and a half, we went to the next exit, doubled back and came in the other way, then reached the airport.

Souvenirs were much cheaper here than elsewhere, and Morrigan found a genetically perfect bar of chocolate.

The flight back wasn't real comfortable either, but it was daytime for us so we managed. Then we had a three hour delay in DC, but decent burritos, and a hop to Indy, where the car was in long term parking because Gail was now out of town on business and not due back for another two days. I'd pick her up Thursday and leave town Friday again for Chicago. Such is the glamorous life of the self-employed.