Handyman's Home

Actually, the airplane was only half full. It was a 767, they're probably using it because it's one of the smallest planes that has enough range to do Amsterdam - Atlanta in one go. This was very good: I had two seats to myself at the window!

Before I left I bought a set of noise cancelling headphones at Schiphol airport. I chose to get the in-ear type, and it turns out that they work perfectly under one condition: the plugs must be plugged airtightly into your ears, or otherwise you're not going to get any useful noise reduction. At first I didn't plug them in completely, and I thought that they didn't work. Wrong!

Now for some observations about Richmond (and perhaps many other similar places).

First of all, the people here have weird eating habits. For instance, the guy who was working with me at the customer's site went out and got me breakfast on two consecutive morning. On the first morning I got a breakfast from McDonald's, on the second morning I got one from Burger King. The McDonald's breakfast consisted of a large chicken nugget or something like that, a hamburger without a bun, a bit of egg and a piece of sweet bread. The Burger King breakfast was weirder: I got a miniature croissant filled with a piece of grilled chicken, bacon and egg. On top of that, lunch was also eaten out of the office: burgers or pizza, with a large beverage (with free refills). Add a large dinner to that, and you understand the following fact: people in Richmond are either very much overweight or very normal, and there's nothing in between. There's simply the people that don't keep track of their eating habits and the ones that do, and it's extremely easy to get loads of easy food with lots of calories here. The Supersize Me story starts to make more sense every minute here. In general, I think the percentage of overweight people is way higher here than in The Netherlands.

(To be continued...)