Friday April 23, 2010

So began a full day of traveling. I pulled myself together and got the local train to Schipol airport, having checked that my flight was still on. I sat on the upper level of the train again, so I could see the scenery a bit better, but mostly I wanted to be out of the way with my giant suitcase.

The airport was busy, which was kind of a relief. I had a very long time until my flight, so I did a little shopping, bought a new battery charger. It was overpriced of course, but I had euros left in cash, too much to just sort of keep but not enough to be worth paying for a conversion back to dollars, so I did the best I could. I realized that the only electrical item I had that required a power converter was my battery charger, and this one that I bought can run on American or European current, so it was a reasonable purchase. Next time, I can leave the big heavy power converter at home and just use plug adapters.

They did the security check right at the ramp to the plane instead of at the entrance to the concourse. Now, back at Christmas, someone flying from Amsterdam to Detroit nearly set off a bomb hidden in his underpants, and the Dutch were no doubt embarrassed by this security failure. So, they searched all the passengers very thoroughly: There was no sneaking anything onto this flight in my underpants. Under other circumstances I might have been upset by such a search, but I know the history here.

My first flight went to Memphis, which is one time zone west of Charleston. There, I had to go through customs, then they sent us back through an American style security screening, even though we didn’t have to switch terminals or anything. It was something special they were doing at the Memphis and Atlanta airports, and I don’t understand why. So I had to go through the routine again, off with my shoes, wallet and watch go in the bag, dump out the water bottle, take out the computer….

Then a short flight to Atlanta, which is a very familiar airport by now. And my flight from there to Charleston was delayed about an hour because they had to replace something on the plane. The pilot came out and told us what exactly was going on, which was refreshing. Like I said, the airlines have become much more forthcoming with information about delays than they used to be.

My friend Angie was there at the Charleston airport to meet me and give me a ride home. Which was good, because I was in no shape to drive: The return trip took from 10:00 pm Amsterdam time on Thursday to midnight Eastern time on Friday, which I think amounts to 32 hours of travel, some of which I was sort of able to sleep through. So finally, at midnight on Friday, more or less, I got home, no missing luggage, no long term damage, but very tired, classes disrupted, lots of work to do!