The trip got off to a crazy start. We drove out to the house to see if they had made any framing progress in the last week. As you can see in a previous posting, progress is not the right word. There was a complete transformation in the last week from “hole in the ground” to “70% complete framed house”. Needless to say, we were pretty excited and spent a little too much time there looking and taking pictures.
We got to the airport around 2:45 PM for a 4:10 PM flight. Getting to Economy Parking we found that the main lot was completely full. We had to then drive to an alternate lot and then race to the train that takes you to the terminals.
Getting to our terminal, we found that everyone else was already in line. We thought we were going to be able to avoid the line because we were taking only two carry-on bags but as it turns out, you need a boarding pass to get through security and you need to go through the main check-in line to get a boarding pass. That is, unless you have an e-ticket, which we didn't, and which wouldn't have mattered anyway since the e-ticket machines were all out of order (all 6 of them). Lovely.
Anyway, the line took a good hour because of all the crazies in front of us who had decided to get on the plane with 7 oversized pieces of luggage. In addition to have too much luggage, their luggage was also too heavy. We saw people taking things out of one bag and re-apportioning them to other bags. We saw people getting stuck with extra fees for oversized bags, etc. I think they need to start assessing a few against these passengers which is based on how many minutes they delay me and everyone else and goes toward a discount on my ticket.
We flew KLM, by the way, which apparently means Royal Dutch Airlines in Dutch. Or is that Hollandaise or Netherlands-ese??? KLM is a partner of Northwest Airlines, or should I say “Northworst“? After getting our boarding passes we had a 5 minute speed lunch and while Ahu was finishing hers, I went to the store and bought Almond Joys, Reese's Pieces, and 2 bags of Peanut M&M's. We had heard bad things about KLM food and I do not like to risk going hungry on a 7-hour flight in the “cluster” class (which is what I call the sardine-like package most people call economy class).
The flight to Amsterdam goes on a Boeing 747 which holds 476 people in the KLM configuration. It's a huge plane and even has two floors. Apparently the top floor used to be a piano bar but in a stellar lapse in judgment it was turned into normal seating. Actually it might be first class but I'll never know because you won't see me spending $5,000 on a $500 ticket.
First, I have to say that flying KLM was great. Great food, excellent service, and a few other niceties really made an impression. They went around a couple of times offering hot, moist towels for refreshment. Dinner was a cheesy pasta (quite good), with warm rolls and butter, a fresh salad with creamy Italian dressing, Monterey Jack cheese with crackers, and cake with lemon frosting for dessert. Dinner was accompanied by a nice cabernet sauvignon and merlot combination. The wine comes in a small bottle which holds about a glass and a half. I had two? bottles throughout the evening. They played Master and Commander (Russell Crowe) and Out of Time (Denzel Washington) as movies. The movie monitors show flight statistics when movies are not playing. The stats include current speed, current outside temperature, distance and time until landing, and current altitude. It's always interesting to ponder the engineering behind a plane with 476 passengers going 618 miles per hour at 36,000 feet in -85 degree temperatures. Quite impressive, really. Breakfast was a bowl of corn flakes with just the right amount of milk, some sugar, orange juice (not good), and some other stuff I didn't eat.
The flight would have been great except for the one thing I hate most about cluster class – the cluster. In a large plane like the 747, you always get someone else sitting next to you other than who you are traveling with. This is where the “luck 'o the draw” comes into play. Take you pick of any number of “colorful” individuals. I pulled the short straw on this ride, though, and got a real piece of work. I always give Ahu the window seat so I get the middle seat. That's right, Mr. 62-inch around shoulders sitting in cluster class in the middle seat. It's a great fit. The guy sitting next to me was already drunk before he got on the plane and had not been on a plane since 1972. He was constantly leaning forward and leaning over to attempt to look out the window. Of course in doing this he blows his nasty drunk-beer-smoker breath all over me. That lovely characteristic by itself was enough to churn my stomach by the end of the flight. But it gets better. He paid no attention to the invisible armrest borders. So constantly he has his arms bumping me way over in my seat, his legs rubbing up against mine, generally making me very “compressed”. On top of this, he's popping some prescription pills every hour or so. He tells us later on that he has an acquaintance who is a doctor and who, in a bout of insanity, gave him a prescription for something that “helps with his nerves”. So he passes out (legs and arms in my space) every hour or so for 15 minutes. Twice he bolted upright with bulging eyes, unable to breathe. Pretty scary… Anyway, when we landed in Amsterdam, I was soooooo ready to get the heck off the plane.
Amsterdam airport is great. It's a lot like O'Hare in that it is really big and spread out, and in that it has a ton of great shops, cafes, and places to eat. We wandered around a bit and then got a real breakfast. Ahu got her typical European bread, cheese, and tomatoes fare, and I got pancakes from Mickey D's. To my surprise, however, instead of maple syrup they have this stuff called stroop. Stroop is somewhere between sugar syrup (with no maple) and molasses. It's not thick and it's dark brown. It was quite tasty.
In the Amsterdam airport, Ahu has informed me that there are male attendants in the women's bathroom. Whoa.
I am sitting here writing this while waiting for our next flight to Austria.