Get Me Outta Here

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Ahh, travel. Like everything else, it has its good days and its bad days. Today was a far cry from that first day off the ship in Japan where Christine and I were trying to navigate the labyrinth of subways and I told her elatedly, “Figuring it out is the best part!” Today, however, is a different story.

After getting off to a late start (and getting stuck in the revolving glass doors on the way out of the port terminal while simultaneously getting a family with four small children stuck along with me), I was off. My Semester at Sea journey had come to an end. Being too cheap to pay 60 Euros for a cab to the airport, I decided to take a quick cab ride down the street so as not to have to have to carry my luggage to the train station. Mind you, I could see the train station from the port terminal. 8 Euros and at least one illegal u-turn later, I arrived at the train station. At the station, the ticket machine didn’t take my debit card (or cash for that matter). Of course. Why would it? When I asked the repair man fixing the turnstile where I could purchase a ticket with cash, he directed me to the ticket booth…on the opposite site of the station meaning I had to go outside and around with all of my earthly possessions. This is when “tired from processing a new country every two days, packed more than I can carry and I think I may cry” girl made her first appearance of the morning. He let me in through the open turnstile and 4 Euros later, I was on my way to the airport.

Getting luggage on and off the train proved to be a bit of an ordeal. I had in tow a rollerboard carryon that tethered to another suitcase and also a rolling duffle bag I bought at Coscto. Note to self: repeatedly yanking on a suitcase that is stuck on the step of the train and cursing “Come on, you piece of…” under your breath over and over does not work. But thanks to the kindness of strangers, my bags and I all made it onto the train.

Upon arrival at the airport, the issue of the luggage again reared its ugly head. Online, it made it sound like there were luggage carts readily available once you got off of the train, but when I arrived, there were none to be found. I saw at least five ladies pushing just their purse in one of these carts. After breaking a sweat more than once hauling all of my worldly possessions all over Amsterdam, I wished every single one of those ladies bad travel juju. Trust me, they earned it.

At the terminal, it became something of a mystery in order to find the check in counter. Everything at the Amsterdam airport was assigned, what appeared to be, an arbitrary number. I found a screen with check in numbers. I had to find my flight number, then that flight had a designated check in counter. Check in 20. What the heck did that mean? What about just having signs for Icleandair? Too easy? After using my imaginary Dutch decoder ring to solve the mystery, I finally found the ominous check in 20 where I was told that my bags were over the weight limit. Every time I use that damn duffle bag, I am over the weight limit. Every time. That is what I get for buying a bag that could probably hold half the contents of a Costco store. I kept pulling things out of my Buick-sized duffle bag and when I had a sufficient pile of dirty laundry and other essentials weighing what I hoped would be at least 5 kilograms on the floor in front of the airport counter, the attendant asked, “Now where are you going to put all that?” When I pointed to my rollerboard, she politely told me that then my carryon luggage would then be too heavy. So I piled everything back in and forked over the overweight baggage fee.

At security, I read all of the signs, followed the protocols accordingly, and still was asked to unpack half of my suitcase and put it in a plastic bin before putting everything through the x-ray machine (laptop, charger, liquids, camera, pretty much anything with a battery…). Sir, a word of advice: if you make that clear on the signage, people would have to unpack everything on the conveyor belt. Just saying.

Almost every interaction I had with another human being this morning resulted in me saying, “You want me to pay how much?!” and then me mumbling to myself, “Get me out of here.” But on the upside, the lady sitting next to me on the plane pulled out a Walkman. Not an iPod or even a Discman, but an honest to goodness Walkman. I was rather impressed until she shooed me off of my own try table during takeoff (as I was writing this) and told me, “You must have this up. For safety.” And proceeded to put the tray table up for me. What does she know about safety? She had her Walkman on during the entire safety briefing. A few minutes after takeoff, she points to the tray table and tells me, “It’s probably okay now.” What are you, the tray table police? My response to her, “I have been on a place before.” Lady, your walkman just got a lot less cool.