Birmingham airport was different to what I am used to. The secure area in Terminal two was small and oval, with a central island of shops selling alcohol, souvineers and perfume. The screens dotted around had a list of all the flights that would be leaving, and when they would be leaving, but no information as to where they would be leaving from..
Doors and gates were listed 25 minutes before departure time, at which time there was mad rush where everyone got up and searched frantically for ‘Door J’ and ‘Gate 2′..
There were a ton of schoolkids all dressed in red hoodies on the flight. They were bound for China and ms of them were pretty well behaved, must’ve been for a geography field trip or something. A boy called Ben sat nearby, so it was a little distracting hearing my name called out by the various kids and teachers.
Descending over Holland was fun, I wish I could’ve taken more pictures, but all electronic stuff has to be switched off (in case we crash and it hits someone, I was told – to be honest if we crashed having my camera hit Ben MkII in the face would be the least of my worries). There were tower blocks in clusters that looked like something out of CoD4 and some that were painted bright colours. Wide canals that just cut through the landscape with enough room to fit 10 narrowboats down.
Schiphol Airport was beautiful as far as airports go, large areas, tall ceilings, glass walls, well placed shops, well signposted. I would definitely go there again. They even had shops selling CLOGS. I found my gate, which was about a 20 minute walk through the terminal from where I got off. Each of the gates were separated by long conveyor-walkways (which I love walking on) which meant I could get from one gate to another in no time. I had a little time to waste so I headed back to one of the café’s and had a cheese and ham croissant and a cereal bar (classy, I know).
The flight itself was nine hours long, and it was a painful first two hours watching the little in-flight animation move the plane over the UK and into the ocean. I was in seat 11A, a window seat near the main boarding door, which seemed to be one of the few seats with zero leg room, with a big black box stuffed beneath the seat in front of me. Nevertheless I got up and moved my legs often enough, used my Zen, and watched The Matrix Revolutions (it still didn’t make a whole lot of sense).
Sitting next to me was a woman called Brenda, who had just flown to Amsterdam from South Africa the previous day, and was now heading back to detroit via Minneapolis. Brenda travels a lot and works for a company called the OCCE which manage water supply projects in Africa. She was cool, and encouraged me to travel lots.
Immigration was easy enough, the guy got my fingerprints and took a happy picture of me with his cheapo webcam, and asked me some stuff, including when I was planning to get married.
Enter aiiiirport, receive baggage, aquire a Jenna with a rose in her hand. Train to the city, bus to the apartment. Slow and relaxing night, messed up sleep patterns, delicious pizza..
I’ll have to blog about what I’ve done so far some other time.
Posted by Grimmie 
