I'm sitting in the hotel now, getting ready to go see the one horse. Here are some of my writings from earlier, when I didn't have internet access. More updates to follow.

Currently, my altitude is 8754 meters and we are beginning our descent into the Amsterdam airport, which is 174 km away. I have spent the flight sleeping, watching New Moon in an effort to be culturally literate, and filling out the most beautiful notebook ever. I have all the contact information for dealers, hotels, confirmation numbers, and then pages upon pages of forms. One per horse, and I have fields so that I can not forget to write anything down. The saddle made it through the trip without the horrifying concept of the gate check being exercised, it folded right up into a burrito and fit even in the overhead of the regional jet. Time to turn off approved portable devices!!!

8 AM- We have arrived in the town of Ijesslstein. I wish we had not. The town feels like...hmm, how can I describe it? If Nazi Germany had a zombie apocalypse. There is not one open coffee shop, restauraunt, anything, just lots of school children on bikes moving in packs. None of them seem able to describe where to find some food, or speak english well, which left me feeling like a hobo, shivering on main street and yelling “Food? Food?” at passers by. Dad and I have since completely given up on the concept of a quaint bakery for breakfast and are sitting in the car enjoying the heat, possibly going to grab some munchies at a gas station, and kill some time until 9 when I am going to look at the first batch of horses.

"This is where gnomes come from. I just saw one driving a van" -WW