Slept all night last night with the window open and no earplugs in!
Around noon, drove to Schipol and turned in the car. Of course, the directions they gave me over the phone were backwards for the way that I happened to come into the airport, but it ended up working out fine and I returned the car. They did find more scratches that were not there before the party (I would have seen them when I washed the car) and could not have happened while I was driving; they look rather like someone wearing riveted jeans decided to use the car as a seat.
The advice I received in the US that I should be sure to remember to remove the license plates from the car when I turned it over was wrong; they need to drive it to the boat and the customs papers include the license plate number. However, they said that the dealer in the US would get it with the license plates attached, and as the dealer was the one that advised me to save them as souvenirs, I'm sure they won't throw them away. I did remember to take all the goodies with me like the first aid kit and the warning triangle.
Another nice thing is that because the cars sail from a port near Amsterdam, it should only take about 4 weeks until I can pick the car up in the US. So I will probably be able to pick it up my second week back in the US; that will be nice. And it is possible for it to take less time.
Taking the train back to Utrecht, the train change at Duivendrecht did not go so well. Several trains were announced to Utrecht, but they would get marked late, and then the next train would be announced even though no train had come. After about half an hour, a stoptrein showed up. That took a while to get to Utrecht, but at least I was sitting down, not standing up. I also got worried that I had somehow taken the wrong train and was headed for hintermost timbuktoo by accident, but then I remembered that one of the things I had removed from the car and had in my backpack was a map of the netherlands, so I was able to compare station names to cities on my map and put my vague fears to rest. Of course, before I looked at the map it did occur to me that the conductor, when stamping my ticket, would have seen "Utrect CS" on the ticket and said, "You don't know the Netherlands very well, do you?" or something to that effect, but irrational fears are hard to quench, and the conductor had looked rather distracted when he punched my ticket.
Went to De Soepterrine again for supper. I realized this time that I missed an ingredient of their cheese fondue last time we went: mustard seeds. It was just as good this time as last.
While we were there, we saw and felt a thunderstorm go over. It was embedded in a front that is forecast to bring us days of rainy weather (back to usual!). We had not brought raincoats, so we ran to the bus stop. Fortunately, we arrived at De Uithof during a lull in the rain. Unfortunately, we had left our bedroom window wide open and several things (including some postcards from Köln) were totally soaked. Fortunately, our bed is dry. Also fortunately, we had not left the sitting room window open, so the computer is dry and still works.