My friend A and I took a four-day trip to Amsterdam this past weekend. I know Amsterdam isn't one of the titular "two cities," but it was indeed the best of times, and the worst of times.
The city itself, and the people who live there, are amazing. They're very friendly and helpful, and the myth that "everyone speaks English" is actually true in Amsterdam. The scenery can't be beat, between the juxtaposition of old and new architecture, the canals (which could use a little TLC), and the parks. I highly recommend Amsterdam as a top-choice destination for US-based travelers, if for no other reason than you'll experience minimal culture shock upon arriving.
We flew (first class for me, but A elected to fly coach) from Dulles to Amsterdam, arriving on Friday morning. We took one of those multi-destination shuttles from the airport to our hotel, which turned out to be a mistake - it wasn't any cheaper than a taxi, and delayed our arrival at our hotel by a good half hour or 45 minutes. It may have been a semi-decent way to see different parts of the city, but the "roads" such as they are in Amsterdam are very short, requiring numerous right-left-right-left-right-right-left turns. By the time we got to our hotel, A and I were both pretty nauseated.
(Which turned out to be a portentous start to our trip.)
Friday night.
Despite our best mutual intentions, we both elected to sleep for a few hours on Friday afternoon. We got up around 6pm and went downstairs for dinner. The restaurant at the hotel was one of those Italian places that wants to serve you multiple courses of what I call "over-engineered" dishes (too many garnishes and sauces and whatnot...just give me a burger and I'm happy). I decided to listen to my stomach, which was not really hungry at all, and just ordered a side of baked potato wedges, which I barely touched.
As we sat having dinner, something peculiar happened. We were sitting outside people-watching as we ate, and at one point a car alarm went off somewhere across the street. People these days pretty much ignore car alarms, but then I spotted three guys running full-tilt southward on Linnaeus Street. Two of them hopped on bicycles and were gone, but the third guy got left behind - and he was very visibly not happy about that. I had the presence of mind to whip out my camera, which I had pre-loaded with my super-zoom lens (280mm, I think), and I snapped 55 pictures of the guy as he stomped up and down the sidewalk. He disappeared from my view, and I called our waitress over and asked to speak to her manager. Well her manager wasn't there, so I just decided to talk to the front desk later about getting the pictures to the police. A couple minutes later, though, a pair of Amsterdam police came walking toward the area. I walked over to them, introduced myself, and showed them the pics on my camera's viewscreen. The cop gave me his email address, and the next day I emailed a couple of the more useful pics to him. He wrote back the day after, saying they had apprehended all three perps, but he thanked me for my vigilance. Still, an interesting start to our stay in Amsterdam....
We hopped on the tram, bought two-day passes right from the driver, and cruised down to the Red Light District. We found a cozy little smoke shop called Goa, and enjoyed a couple of "space cakes" and a couple of pre-rolled sativa joints, neither of which seemed to have much of an effect on me. A didn't like the smoky environment, so she walked around outside for a while. I cursed my lack of rolling knowledge (the shop won't roll for you), and renewed my determination to find some good weed in Amsterdam.
(A quick side note: I'm not a pothead, but I've smoked a few times. The one time that it *really* affected me, though, was when I was smoking a joint that had been rolled and given to me by a friend at one of my big-ass parties. I didn't actually smoke it until a couple of months later, while I was watching Parks and Rec with a different friend. I felt myself able to connect with the characters on the show on an emotional level that I'd never felt before, and that's sort of what I'm looking to attain again. But again, I'm not a pothead - aside from Amsterdam, I've only bought it once in my life. The other pot I've had has been given to me by friends here and there. But I digress.)
Saturday.
A and I woke up bright and early at 6:30am, and headed down for the hotel restaurant's breakfast buffet. It was decent, a tad overpriced, but I didn't care. I ate my fill, and...my stomach hurt. I thought I'd just overdone it a bit, so I went back to the room and laid in bed while A took a shower. My stomach kept hurting, and hurting, and hurting...and just didn't stop. I told A to go ahead and visit the Olde Church and whatever else she wanted to do, and maybe I'd join her later.
16 or 17 hours later...I was still laying in bed, stomach killing me. No issues at "either end," just a stomach in serious knots. A bullied and peer-pressured me into going to the hospital, and I gave in. There turned out to be a 24-hour care facility a very short taxi ride from the hotel, so that worked out.
We got there, I filled out a form, and we took a seat. One minute later, this guy walked in who sounded like his was in BAD shape - I wasn't sure if he'd been stabbed or beaten up or what, but he sounded like he was really suffering. After a few minuted, a nurse ("Anja," a very down-to-earth middle-aged woman, I liked her immediately) came out and called my name. I said "You might want to take this guy first, he sounds like he's in bad shape." She said "Oh no, we'll take you first...we know our clients."
Yikes.
Anja and I talked for a few minutes, and she said she could give me some over-the-counter medication for the pain, but that if I wanted to see a doctor I'd have to wait a while. I didn't think a doctor was necessary, I was just hoping for a bit of medication, so that was fine. She gave me a couple of packets of Pepto Bismol-type liquid, warned me against "bad space cakes," and sent us back to the hotel.
Sunday.
I woke up on Sunday and my stomach was...mostly better. The pain had reduced from a 4/10 down to maybe a 2/10. Buuuut, the rest of my body hurt as well - muscle soreness from head to toe, and chills. I was okay with that - at least it showed that something was happening. Muscle soreness I can handle, since that's somatic instead of visceral. But while I felt "better," I still didn't feel "good," and once again cut A loose on the city of Amsterdam while I recuperated in the hotel. We did get together for lunch and dinner, though, so at least I got out a bit.
Monday.
Stomach: good! Body: good! Let's go see Amsterdam!!!!!!111
We had breakfast at the hotel, then headed out to explore the canals of Amsterdam. We also explored the bike paths - the hotel rented bicycles, so we took a couple of them to the boat rental place. I was having a bit of a hard time with my bike, because it's a more "upright" style than I'm used to, but the dedicated bicycle paths throughout the city are easy to navigate.
We rented a 10' solar-powered boat (top speed: 3 mph) and wound our way around the canals of Amsterdam. It was a nice way to see the city, although like I said, the canals themselves could use a bit of TLC. That's the one odd thing about Amsterdam: the city is beautiful and the people are friendly and prosperous, yet their subway ("Metro") and canals are dirty as hell. The streets are fine, their trams and buses are fine, but there's definitely an "under the rug" element to the city.
Oh, something I probably should've stated from the start: the whole reason I went to Amsterdam at this particular time is because my beloved and perfect parents were on a Danube river cruise for the past two weeks. They started in Vienna and made their way up to Amsterdam. I had planned on meeting them in Vienna, but I got sick and decided to meet them two weeks later in Amsterdam instead. So the whole weekend, I tried via various means to get in touch with them. I knew they were docking in Amsterdam on Sunday, but did not know where or exactly when. I couldn't text-message them, and I couldn't call them, and my dad could receive emails, but only sporadically. And, at no time did he tell me exactly
WHERE THEY WERE
DOCKED, WHICH WAS THE
ONLY THING I NEEDED TO
KNOW. Ahem. Sorry. Beloved and perfect, beloved and perfect. I did mention my illness, but I felt that I'd be well enough to meet them for dinner on Sunday night. Well, it turns out that their cruise ship was a floating incubator for a virus of their own (there's a shocker), and everyone was "hacking," and that maybe we should save our let's-meet-up-in-Europe for a later date. Yeah, maybe one without a disease-ridden cruise ship, let's start with that.
Tuesday.
Time to go home. I kind of stayed up all night listening to Harmontown and checking the flight reservation page. Our AMS-ORD flight had about forty open seats, so that was cool.
6:30am rolled around, and I headed down to have one last Amsterdam breakfast. I got a cup of coffee and some scrambled eggs from the buffet, sat down at a table, opened up the flight reservation page on my iPad, and...
Overbooked by 18 seats??
Our wonderful direct nonstop AMS-ORD flight, which had been wide open, was now eighteen seats overbooked?? In the span of about two hours since I last checked?? How do these things happen?
This meant three things: one, I had to rebook us on a different flight. Two, we would have to go through the unimaginable nightmare of connecting from an international flight to a domestic flight in a US airport. Three, we would be leaving AMS earlier than anticipated, which meant we had to get to the airport
fast.
The most open flight that morning was to Houston, which left about 45 minutes earlier than the ORD flight. A was still snoozing up in the room, so I called up there from the hotel and gave her the bad news. She packed fast and met me down at the restaurant. She grabbed a quick bite to eat, and I settled the hotel bill and hailed a cab.
I would be remiss if I left out one detail about Amsterdam's Schiphol (rhymes with "nipple") airport: they set up their security screening on a per-gate basis. So if your flight departs from gate G3, you don't actually go through security until you're
at gate G3. The unfortunate side-effect is that there is no bathroom or drinking fountain in the gate area - if you want either or both, you have to go through security all over again. In addition, the security guys at Schiphol are almost
worse than the TSA, if you can believe it. The guy who patted me down basically gave me a huge bear hug and squeezed my ass. Look, I know you Europeans are a little more "flexible," but come on....
Anyway...A and I flew first class from Amsterdam to Houston. The flight was very bumpy, but otherwise uneventful. Oh, the plane itself was a 777-200 V5, and I was located in seat 1D.
Right next to the lavatory. Ugh. If I had actually paid for that seat, I'd have been furious. Whoever designed this configuration needs to have their head examined.
We landed in Houston and began The Long Walk. Go through immigration, collect our bags, go through customs, re-check our bags, then go through those complete wastes of space, the TSA. This entire process takes maybe an hour and a half. Houston apparently does not have an employee line, or even a stupid TSA "Pre-Check" line - just one big-ass slow-moving no-purpose security-theater line. Fuck Houston airport, fuck it in its stupid ass.
I asked A how she liked the flight (she had never flown first class internationally before). She said it was fine, but that she was feeling a little nauseated.......
By the skin of our teeth, we got on the 3:45pm flight to ORD. A got an aisle seat in row 25, I got a middle seat in row 36. Ugh. Well, just a two-hour flight, right? I could handle that....
We pulled away from the gate, taxied for a bit, then stopped. And sat, and sat, and sat. Then we took off.
I was seated between two gentlemen: to my right in the window seat was "Gustavo" (at least I think that's what was written on his boarding pass), and he was as broad-shouldered as I am but pretty much kept to himself. To my left, in the aisle seat, was Cocktail. Cocktail earned his nickname from the one-man party he decided to throw for himself about an hour into the flight - he ordered a can of Sprite and two mini-bottles of vodka. So there he was, with his own personal mini-bar, his Kindle, and he was just happy as a clam.
I waited as long as I could. Really, I did. But eventually, nature's call superceded my desire to be a good employee and good person and allow Cocktail to enjoy his one-man party in peace. I did notice that his drinks were pretty much all consumed, so I felt better about asking him to move so I could use the bathroom. His response was a sarcastic, "Well, I got all this stuff here..." I stared him down, and he knew he had no right to block my path. So, he gathered his "stuff" and got out of my way. He did mumble something about "throw this out?" I said "Sure, I can do that for you," and took the remains of his party back to the galley for disposal. After using the bathroom, I came back to my seat and resisted the very understandable, and perhaps even
righteous desire to punch Cocktail's lights out.
It was around this time, however, that the Captain came on the loudspeaker and delivered some bad news. She said that a slow-moving storm had effectively shut down the airport, and that we'd have to wait in a holding pattern for a while - at least 45 minutes. Ugh. 45 minutes later, she came on and said that despite everyone's best efforts, landing at ORD wouldn't be possible, and we were being diverted to Rockford for an unspecified amount of time. (This led to a moment of emotional connection between Cocktail and I - he said "Rockland?" I said "Rockford." I got your back, bro. Let's hug it out.)
So we landed in Rockford with the hopes that it would be a gas-and-go situation. We did gas, but didn't exactly go - we were on the ground for maybe an hour. During this time I exchanged text messages with A, who informed me that she had basically been throwing up the whole time on the plane. Ugh. I was grateful that she got the aisle seat instead of my middle - I can only imagine how Cocktail would've responded to her puking on him.
I also felt a twinge of sympathy later for Cocktail. When we landed in Rockford, a planefull of cell phone conversations commenced, naturally. Cocktail's conversation included tidbits like "Well, he's drinking now, right? What does the speech therapist say?" etc. Made me glad I didn't punch his lights out after all.
(A yoga teacher of mine once said, "Don't be jealous if someone can get into a pose deeper than you can, because that person has baggage you don't even want to think about.")
A and I discussed the possibility of de-planing, renting a car, and driving the rest of the way, but I don't think we were ever at a gate in the first place. We took off once again, and after the shortest flight ever, landed at ORD. We must've drawn the short straw on runways, though, because we taxied for about 30 minutes before getting to a gate. ORD was a mess - people everywhere. All flights were either cancelled, waiting on incoming crews, changing gates, or some other non-normal status. We collected our bags, I dropped A off at home, and headed home myself. I was very grateful to be home, and today I emailed the captain of our IAH-RFD-ORD flight and complimented her on keeping us sympathetically abreast of the situation last night. That was easily the worst flight I've ever been on, but it certainly wasn't the crew's fault.
So that's Amsterdam! Well, okay, more about our miserable trip back
from Amsterdam. But Amsterdam itself is wonderful - go there if you can.
