“Mijn herr, is zeven uur!”
“I know, I’m heading to Schiphol.”
“Sorry, dude. Twee grote wodka met ijs, coming up.”
Schiphol is a large airport. It makes Portland International seem a tad provincial by comparison. When they say to arrive two and a half hours before your flight’s departure time, they are serious. Richard and I, being experienced in Schiphol departures knew they were serious. We awoke at 6AM to ensure we would be there by 8AM, a full 150 minutes before our scheduled departure.
The first half-hour was spent drinking Café Rood. (It’s much like instant coffee, but it has writing in an exotic combination of languages that makes it seem just a little bit better.) We mixed it with hot tap water. Hmmm…good. But it was a source of caffeine, a serious requirement if we’re to find the door to the hallway. After rousing to some semblance of consciousness, we showered, gathered our stuff and headed out the door, down the two perilous flights of Dutch stairways and on to the Rembrandtplein.
It was time to say ‘adieu’ to my new best friends, the men and dog of Nacht Wacht. I’m pretty sure Rutger got a tear in his eye as we hugged good-bye.
A quick tram to Centraal Station and before you know it, we’re on the train heading to Schiphol. We get there at 7:45 for a 10:30 plane. Richard and I are talking about coffee and breakfast. Finally waking up. But no, first we had to face the hordes at check-in station 15. 7,436 people are trying to use the same four self-service check-in kiosks. Bedlam ensues.
Forty minutes later we’re standing in line to check-in our luggage. The line is moving fast until the woman with two-carts-of-luggage and her hockey-stick-wielding escort get to the counter. Progress grinds to a halt while the baggage agent and the lady-with-more-suitcases-and-bags-than-anyone-should-ever-be-allowed-to-leave-the-house-with and her hockey-stick-wielding escort discuss some of the intricacies of travel.
We finally get to the front of the line. The baggage agent is very kind. She informed us our flight was already boarding and told us to scurry on down to our gate. She lied through her teeth.
But, we scurried on down to gate E7. Please note: On a good day, Richard and my “scurry” speed strongly resembles other people’s “shuffle” speed. Being desperately short on caffeine, it more resembled a “snail” speed. We arrive and the gatekeeper checked our boarding pass and our passport one more time and asks us to kindly wait. Sigh.
When the next interrogator comes available, he comes and gets Richard and I and takes us back to his podium. The Dutch are too kind of a people to be good at harsh questioning, so we have a brief chit-chat and he sends us on our way to the security check-point.
The people at the security check-point are not Dutch. Rough and tumble type dudes and babes. The scruffy young man at the metal detector tells me he is going to check my pockets. I was never sure why, but he did. A cigarette, a cold shower and fifteen minutes later, I’m fit to board. I gave him my number, but I’m realistic. He’ll never call.
So, we stumble down a hallway and enter a room with about a dozen chairs and all 320 of our travel mates. It’s very warm and cozy. And there. Just behind the bullet-proof glass, across the minefield and on the other side of the electrified fence with concertina wire on the top. A coffee shop. We can see the people enjoying their last cup of good, rich European coffee. They’re taunting us. They know we’ve had nothing but Café Rood. I hate them.
But then we get on board. I’m happy to be going home to the pets, but I am sad to leave Amsterdam. It is a very comfortable city. And Netherlands. Woof.
Oh, I got to see Greenland on the way home. It really is cool.
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1 comment:
Velkommen home Mac & Richard!
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