Imagine setting your alarm for 3:40 am, only to have an ear worm stuck in your head and stay up all night anyway. You hear the church bells in the distance faintly ring 11 times, and after awhile, 12, then 1, then 2, then finally 3 times indicating it’s now 3:00 am.

Imagine arranging for a taxi for 4:00 am with the hotel the night before only to be reminded not to forget anything because there will be no one at the reception desk at that hour.

Imagine arriving at the train station to buy a ticket to the airport only to look in your bag desperately to learn you have no wallet, no credit cards and no phone. Aaaaurgh! They must be back at the hotel! You do have your passport and a few euros, but it is not enough to get very far. Besides your itinerary is in your phone, so you don’t even know what flights you are on. There’s no point in trying to call the hotel, because even if you could somehow look up the number, there’s no one at the hotel to answer the phone.

This was the situation I found myself in, and I imagined being stuck in Europe with no phone and no money. I could just hear Carl Crosier tsk-tsking and saying, “You really did it to yourself this time! Now get yourself out of it!”

Yes, I realized too late that I had left my phone (with all my credit cards) plus my Bluetooth headphones, charging up at the hotel.

I returned to the taxi stand and told a couple of drivers my predicament. I asked if someone could look up the hotel’s phone number and was told ‘no.’ That was crazy because I knew no one was there, anyway.

One of the drivers asked me, you have your phone and credit cards at the hotel? I said, “yes,” and he told me he would drive me back to the hotel. Maybe there would be a doorbell to ring that might summon someone inside.

We got to the hotel and we were unable to find a doorbell, so I started knocking on the window to no avail. Luckily there was a sign outside with a number to call in case of an emergency, so the driver used his phone and thankfully someone answered.

The driver explained (in Dutch) my situation then handed me his phone to speak to the very same manager who had arranged my taxi and reminded me not to forget anything. I apologized profusely for calling at such an ungodly hour. He said he would have to put on some pants, but then could be there in ten minutes.

When he arrived he handed me his master card key and I went up and retrieved with great relief my phone wallet and headphones.

I returned with my belongings along with all the euros I had left, €25, and insisted he take the money for his trouble. The taxi driver then drove me directly to Schiphol Airport and I made my 7:00 am flight with no problem.

Instead of paying €5 for an one way train ticket, I figure it cost me €20 for a taxi to the station, €25 to the manager and €57 to the taxi ride to the airport, in all a total of over €100, which is about $125. This was an expensive lesson!

You may remember my telling you the story of when I left Paris at age 17 after studying the summer with Marcel Dupré, and oversleeping on the day of my departure,only to miss my flight to New York. No one was there to meet me since I came in on a different flight and I had exactly 40¢ in my pocket! Then a cab driver felt sorry for me and gave me $3.60, enough in those days to buy something to eat and make a phone call.

I also got myself in a pickle when I was in Paris and stayed out too late one night (past midnight) with my friends. When I got back to my hostel, the door was locked! I had to wander the streets to hail a taxi to look for a hotel—the first couple we tried were also closed. Of course in those days I had no credit card, but I still remember how weird it was to check into a hotel with no luggage, no pajamas, no toothbrush!

No wonder John McCreary used to call me Catastrophic Kathy! But as I used to tell my husband, if everything went according to the way it was supposed to, life would be too boring, right?! Getting lost is part of going on vacation!

I finish this post with a few of the pictures I took of food in Amsterdam. The Fatboyburger that I ate outside of the Rijksmuseum was possibly the best I’ve ever had, because of the crusty French bread it was served on.