What a fun surprise this was, after a 20-hour overnight trip from Sacramento!Įvery time I am about to fly far away, I become apprehensive. I reach my final destination five hours after I landed. I get on a bus towards Amsterdam, and I connect to another bus to Alkmaar.
I succeed, rolling my suitcase and stepping on a lot of toes.
All you have to do is try to get on, along with your suitcase(s). No tickets are being sold, no payments expected. You can try to shove your way through the front door or the rear door, it doesn’t matter. The authorities have requisitioned tour busses to help out, in addition to the regular public busses. Everyone is shoving, stepping on each other and trying to fight his way onto a bus. There are no lines, only mobs and stampedes. I exit the airport’s arrival hall and roll my baggage to the bus stop area from where dozens of buses swarm out to different places. Meanwhile, giant Airbusses and Boeings land every minute at one of the world’s busiest airports, and disgorge thousands of passengers, many of whom usually take the train to Amsterdam and elsewhere. The clerk informs us nonchalantly that this happens frequently. Why? Because someone has just committed suicide by jumping in front of a train between the airport and Amsterdam. There, the clerk tells me (and to dozens of other passengers) that all train traffic from the airport has been halted. When I get there, I usually take the train straight from the airport to my final destination, Alkmaar, a city about an hour north of Amsterdam.Īs usual, I retrieved my baggage and cleared customs and passport control rapidly, and I immediately walked up to the train ticket booth inside the great arrival hall to buy my ticket to Alkmaar. For example: This time, the “surprise” happened upon my arrival at Amsterdam international airport. Put differently: The greatest surprise of any long-distance trip is if there are no surprises. Only one thing is sure, when you fly long-distance: There will be “surprises.” Let me suggest the following variant of Murphy’s Law: It may sound like fun and glamorous, but at my age, it’s becoming less so.
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