Koffie met melk, courtesy of the SturmsI went to the airport with my family on Tuesday, September 4. We waited in line for a little while, to check in. Thankfully, my luggage was just underweight. After I checked in, I started to say goodbye to my family, when my father spotted another blue Rotary blazer. It was a girl my age, already headed towards security. My parents saw her parents, and went over to ask where she was going. It turns out we were on the same flight; she was headed to Italy too! My parents told me to try to catch up, so I got into the line for security, turned back to say bye, one last time, and my dad shouted "Go!"
Megan, the girl going to Italy too, was waiting on the other side. We walked through the corridors and found our gate, with no trouble at all. She had traveled before, and filled me in on what to expect. We sat down in the waiting area, with less than 2 hours 'till our flight left, or so we thought. It ended up being delayed, just 45 minutes or so. We got on the plane, sadly, we weren't seated anywhere near eachother. I had a window seat, sort of. I was next to where a window should have been, but there was none. My seatmates were a middle-aged couple, traveling to Prague to celebrate the wife's 50th birthday. They were friendly, but not overly so. I was flying on a KLM 777, the kind of plane that has on demand television. I watched a movie, and an episode of Scrubs. The food on the plane wasn't too bad; actually, it was better than I expected. We landed in Amsterdam without any problem. Megan was waiting for me when I got off. She was taking a different flight than I was, as she was headed towared Venezia. I walked her to passport security, and we said our goodbyes.
Then began the search for my gate. It was D74. Since we had landed in the D terminal, I walked back to our arrival gate. Unfortunately, the gate numbers of that particular end of the terminal only went up to 50. I found a map of the airport, and located my terminal. Which was upstairs. The map showed stairs being somewhere by the 3rd gate of the D terminal. I found gate 3, but I didn't find any stairs. I walked back and forth, looking for a sign to tell me where my gate was. Eventually, I asked a very polite airportperson, who spoke very little english, how to get to my gate. She told me it was near passport security. I went back to passport security, found a sign telling me how to get to my terminal, ended up going through passport security, and finally found an escalator! At least, now I knew I was on the right floor. It was a good thing I had an 8 hour layover, because it took me 2 hours to get to my gate. After finding my gate, I bought a coffee, pulled out Teen Vouge, and passed the time for the next 2 hours.
In the Schipol airport, there is a television at each gate, displaying departure and arrival times, as well as gate changes. I looked at the television at gate D74 to see what time it was, and I noticed my gate had been changed. Luckily, it was still on the same floor. I found the gate, which was in the most remote part of the whole airport, and chatted a bit with two older ladies: sisters, from Minnesota. They were taking an earlier flight to Milan Malpensa, the same airport I was flying into. After they boarded their flight, I checked the time again, only to find another gate change. This time, it was D78, which was downstairs. I went back downstairs, sat in a waiting room, and started to zone out.. When an airport security person came in the room, and started yelling at me in Dutch. Having been awake for who knows how long, I was a little disoriented, and rather than try to tell him I didn't speak Dutch, I stared at him. Finally, he asked if I spoke English. After replying that I did, he told me I wasnt allowed to wait there, and that I had to go back upstairs to wait. Instead of going to another gate, I chose a table where I could see people coming and going. I waited there until the rest of the Rotary exchangees passed by, and the 2 guys, Owen and David, sat with me, while the rest of the girls went shopping. We went back to gate D78, but we didn't go down to the waiting room. Again, the gate had been changed. We all went to the new gate, to find it had been changed back to gate D78. Because there was only an hour 'till our flight boarded, we went down to the waiting room, and this time, no angry security guard came to yell at us in Dutch.
We boarded the flight on time, but did not leave when we were supposed to. Someone had failed to get on the plane, so we waited for them. When they didn't show, their luggage had to be taken off the plane. Finally, we took off, on our way to Italy! I fell asleep on the plane, for all of 2 minutes. The flight was rather turbulent, but I found the bumpyness exciting. We landed in Italy, just a little late. I was soo excited to meet my family, I wanted to run to retrive my luggage, and get through customs as quickly as possible. Instead, I waited for the other girls to go to the bathroom and do their makeup.. and we all went to the luggage carousel together.
After all the luggage had been taken off the carousel, one girl, Ellen, was missing one of her bags. Also, there was one extra bag, with a Rotary Exchange tag on it, that didn't belong to any of us. All the other students went to meet their families, while I helped Ellen find her luggage. We took the other bag, which we discovered was supposed to be on a flight to Trieste, to lost and found, and we searched for Ellen's missing bag. When we couldn't find it, Ellen watied to file a claim, and someone told her that her bag was a security threat, or something silly like that. I guess the security could tell we were exhausted and harmless, because they gave us Ellen's bag, and we left.
In Italy, "customs" is a security guard sitting at a desk by automatic doors. We walked through the doors, no one even looked at us, and we found our families. My host mother and host sister were waiting for me, along with the District Youth Exchange Officer. We managed to get my luggage to the car, and FINALLY I was on my way to my new home!
Megan, the girl going to Italy too, was waiting on the other side. We walked through the corridors and found our gate, with no trouble at all. She had traveled before, and filled me in on what to expect. We sat down in the waiting area, with less than 2 hours 'till our flight left, or so we thought. It ended up being delayed, just 45 minutes or so. We got on the plane, sadly, we weren't seated anywhere near eachother. I had a window seat, sort of. I was next to where a window should have been, but there was none. My seatmates were a middle-aged couple, traveling to Prague to celebrate the wife's 50th birthday. They were friendly, but not overly so. I was flying on a KLM 777, the kind of plane that has on demand television. I watched a movie, and an episode of Scrubs. The food on the plane wasn't too bad; actually, it was better than I expected. We landed in Amsterdam without any problem. Megan was waiting for me when I got off. She was taking a different flight than I was, as she was headed towared Venezia. I walked her to passport security, and we said our goodbyes.
Then began the search for my gate. It was D74. Since we had landed in the D terminal, I walked back to our arrival gate. Unfortunately, the gate numbers of that particular end of the terminal only went up to 50. I found a map of the airport, and located my terminal. Which was upstairs. The map showed stairs being somewhere by the 3rd gate of the D terminal. I found gate 3, but I didn't find any stairs. I walked back and forth, looking for a sign to tell me where my gate was. Eventually, I asked a very polite airportperson, who spoke very little english, how to get to my gate. She told me it was near passport security. I went back to passport security, found a sign telling me how to get to my terminal, ended up going through passport security, and finally found an escalator! At least, now I knew I was on the right floor. It was a good thing I had an 8 hour layover, because it took me 2 hours to get to my gate. After finding my gate, I bought a coffee, pulled out Teen Vouge, and passed the time for the next 2 hours.
In the Schipol airport, there is a television at each gate, displaying departure and arrival times, as well as gate changes. I looked at the television at gate D74 to see what time it was, and I noticed my gate had been changed. Luckily, it was still on the same floor. I found the gate, which was in the most remote part of the whole airport, and chatted a bit with two older ladies: sisters, from Minnesota. They were taking an earlier flight to Milan Malpensa, the same airport I was flying into. After they boarded their flight, I checked the time again, only to find another gate change. This time, it was D78, which was downstairs. I went back downstairs, sat in a waiting room, and started to zone out.. When an airport security person came in the room, and started yelling at me in Dutch. Having been awake for who knows how long, I was a little disoriented, and rather than try to tell him I didn't speak Dutch, I stared at him. Finally, he asked if I spoke English. After replying that I did, he told me I wasnt allowed to wait there, and that I had to go back upstairs to wait. Instead of going to another gate, I chose a table where I could see people coming and going. I waited there until the rest of the Rotary exchangees passed by, and the 2 guys, Owen and David, sat with me, while the rest of the girls went shopping. We went back to gate D78, but we didn't go down to the waiting room. Again, the gate had been changed. We all went to the new gate, to find it had been changed back to gate D78. Because there was only an hour 'till our flight boarded, we went down to the waiting room, and this time, no angry security guard came to yell at us in Dutch.
We boarded the flight on time, but did not leave when we were supposed to. Someone had failed to get on the plane, so we waited for them. When they didn't show, their luggage had to be taken off the plane. Finally, we took off, on our way to Italy! I fell asleep on the plane, for all of 2 minutes. The flight was rather turbulent, but I found the bumpyness exciting. We landed in Italy, just a little late. I was soo excited to meet my family, I wanted to run to retrive my luggage, and get through customs as quickly as possible. Instead, I waited for the other girls to go to the bathroom and do their makeup.. and we all went to the luggage carousel together.
After all the luggage had been taken off the carousel, one girl, Ellen, was missing one of her bags. Also, there was one extra bag, with a Rotary Exchange tag on it, that didn't belong to any of us. All the other students went to meet their families, while I helped Ellen find her luggage. We took the other bag, which we discovered was supposed to be on a flight to Trieste, to lost and found, and we searched for Ellen's missing bag. When we couldn't find it, Ellen watied to file a claim, and someone told her that her bag was a security threat, or something silly like that. I guess the security could tell we were exhausted and harmless, because they gave us Ellen's bag, and we left.
In Italy, "customs" is a security guard sitting at a desk by automatic doors. We walked through the doors, no one even looked at us, and we found our families. My host mother and host sister were waiting for me, along with the District Youth Exchange Officer. We managed to get my luggage to the car, and FINALLY I was on my way to my new home!
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