Are We Having Fun Yet?

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Is anyone enjoying air travel anymore? Maybe those in first class. Or those who bought their way through faster security checks. But the excitement of the destination carries me through the cattle car experience of coach travel. 

Leaving BTV

Still, the 23+ hours of air time alone had its ups as well as its downs. Despite leaving Burlington an hour late we had a long enough layover in Detroit to find Vino Volo and for the price of a massage whiled away a couple of hours eating marcona almonds and olives and tasting and buying wine--as if we had anywhere to carry the wine. Ingenious rearranging of my backpack contents produced space for two full bottles and one split. I now feel something in common with Cheryl Strayed, who hiked the Pacific Coast Trail with a backpack that was too heavy.

The Delta flight to Amsterdam passed in a blur and soon we were in the familiar territory of Schiphol Airport with its wide variety of shopping opportunities and ready availability of "een lekker kopje koffie" everywhere you turn. The last time I was in Schiphol was 1993, when I was moving back to the United States from The Netherlands. Hearing the familiar Dutch announcements made me feel as if I had never left. Just as we settled in for the aforementioned coffee, it dawned on me that I was missing a bag and that I had left it on the plane--just a knitting bag, but it had some other important miscellany in it as well. Okay, this was an unforced error on my part.

I took off at a trot and buttonholed the first cute blond KLM flight attendant I saw and asked her how I should solve this problem. She directed me to the Information desk, which in turn directed me to the KLM transfer desk...I was two concourses away from my sister and my cup of coffee by this time. Fortunately we had enough of a layover that time was not an issue or this would have produced a 5-star Reinka Heart Attack. Happily another cute blond KLM employee took my information, gave me a card with a number to call, explained that it might take a month to works its way through their system, IF someone turned in the bag, etc. I was feeling pretty annoyed with myself.

Then she went over to a nearby desk and came back and asked me for a description of the bag,  Next thing I knew she handed me the bag. Those efficient Delta/KLM folks had already found and turned in the bag and to the exact spot I was. When I retraced my steps to Denise and the coffee, I was pleased to find the coffee was still warm! I love Holland.

Whiling away the afternoon at DTW

On to the last leg of the journey, which is now feeling so long I refuse to look at a clock or even try to figure out how many hours I have been awake. At Schiphol before you board the plane, your carry-on baggage goes through one more security screening and no liquids are allowed unless they were purchased in a duty-free shop.  Oops. A friendly Dutch guy who is working security for the flight before ours tells us this good news but also says the security folks have some discretion. As we line up for the final check, Denise tells cute KLM employee #3 about our problem. She explains we bought it in a secure area but not in the duty-free shop in the Detroit airport and did not know we could not carry it on. I am standing by thinking we are going to lose the wine and we could have had a massage for that much money.

Hartelijk dank aan KLM!

The Air Armavia man-in-charge tells us this is a problem, that we can't take liquids on. But then he takes one look at our carry-on bags and says those bags have to be gate-checked. Aha! A new avenue of offense opens up and Denise asks if we can't just put the wine in the carry-ons then since they are going to be checked anyway? No clear response is forthcoming but I sense the tide has turned, so we scramble to get the wine bottles into my carry-on (whose expansion pocket is now needed), put everything through the machines and man-in-charge gives us gate-check tags, looking a little resigned but focusing on his priority which is to get us all on the plane. In the meantime, Denise has lost her boarding pass and KLM#3 says, "Don't worry, I will print you a new one." She is now managing the conclusion of this entire episode for us and smiling. Definitely a down-tuned-into-an-up.Hurray for KLM!


Finally, we board Air Armavia, which is using an old and small 737 that was once in the Aeroflot fleet. In  other words, it saw better days decades ago and smells of cigar smoke from the same era. OMG--another four hours on a plane and the less said about that flight, the better. The whole journey ends on a big up--all our luggage made it, we got our 120 day multi-entry visa, and Sergo, the office driver, was waiting for us with a gorgeous sunset.