So far I’m loving the Netherlands. Getting here was painful, but it was well worth it. After going to the airport a day early (with an entire farewell party to send me off) I had some extra time to prepare myself mentally for leaving. However, when I went the next day to the airport I was unable to find my flight again. It turns out that my flight was switched from US Airways to Lufthansa, and it was pushed back three hours. I was therefore able to enjoy some good sunbathing time outside the airport with Daniel and go to lunch at 13 Coins before checking in.
Once I got on the plane, I started chatting with the people next to me. I sat in the middle seat of the middle row, so I was unfortunately unable to watch the take-off. However, I got to drink on the flight for free and started up an interesting conversation with a 74-year-old Finnish woman about education and feminism in the US and Finland. She was a lovely old lady and extremely smart, and I felt like she really liked me. She talked a lot about her avid biking hobby and how, even at her age, she was still taking bike trips along the Danube and in parts of rural China. She reminded me of my mom (except you're obviously much younger, mommy) and I shared some of her stories about biking around the South Pacific Islands and Europe. Basically, we bonded.
On my other side sat this giant of a young man who was so large that he was literally unable to fit his legs in the space between his seat and the one in front. He sprawled somewhat awkwardly into the isle between the seats, apologizing each time someone tried to get past him. We began talking and it turned out he was a student at UW as well, on the football team. He was going to Poland to take care of his elderly grandfather, spoke Polish fluently, and was going to be in Europe the same amount of time as me. These were enough similarities to get us talking for quite some time. We also both liked 30 Rock, dancing, and the Suzzalo Library. I was beginning to think he might be a good person to be friends with once I get back to the states, since I haven’t made friends with any people from school yet.
At some point, after watching about half of the movie Water For Elephants I put my eye mask on and snuggled down for a nap. When I awoke I found my Polish friend finishing off a fifth of Southern Comfort that he had bought at the duty free store. He literally drank the entire bottle within the span of an hour without any mixer or chaser. He just filled up the little airplane cup and downed it like a shot…over and over again. I watched with amusement as he drained the last of it, and then became a little concerned. He quickly descended from tipsy to very, very drunk right before my eyes. He started lightly flirting with me at first, then emphatically asking me what my ‘type’ was and exclaiming at the smallness of my wrists (apparently they’re very small to a 260 lb drunk Polish guy). After that I was mildly amused but slightly uncomfortable and decided to try going back to my nap. This only resulted in having the last of the Southern Comfort spilled in my hair and hearing him whisper in my ear “What if I just leaned over while you have the mask over your eyes and I just kissed you?”, followed by his breath on my cheek and his shoulder pressing into mine. I jerked away and pulled off my mask. He was leaning in, staring intently at me. At this point he started slurring his speech considerably and telling me how women only wear yoga pants (which I was wearing for the plane ride) to get the attention of men. At this point I felt a bit trapped between the sleeping grandma and the drunken Pole. I just smiled and said the yoga pants were a comfortable alternative to jeans for a 9-hour flight. Around this time his eyes were heavily lidded and a little bit of drool was hanging from the corner of his mouth. I could tell he could no longer focus on me, but he kept leaning farther in towards me, putting quite a lot of weight on my arm and shoulder. Luckily, just when I had run out of patience and kindness, a flight attendant came up and told him that he “had to leave the nice lady alone now”, or he would be picked up by the police when we arrived in Frankfurt. He became belligerent with her and got up from his seat, stumbling heavily into other passengers and going into the back of the plane, upsetting a number of stewardesses. He was escorted back to his seat, where he sat sullenly until passing out on my shoulder and producing an impressive rope of drool from his open mouth down to his chest. I tried to ignore it and spoke some more with the kindly old lady about environmentalism.
Eventually he woke up though, and with about an hour left of the flight he stood up, swayed dangerously, and then looked around frantically with the face of someone who is about to puke and knows it. He was rushed to the restroom by a stewardess and stayed there for a long time. He made a big commotion by the bathrooms though, because there was some shouting and the entire staff of the plane was rushing around anxiously and whispering in fast-paced German to one another. Eventually I was given a seat in the back of the plane where the flight attendants sit for landing because they didn’t want him puking on me or being inappropriate. I was given drinks and chocolate and enjoyed listening to the flight attendants talk about me without realizing I understand German. I was then strapped into their considerably more intense seatbelt system and sat through a very turbulent landing without any window to look out of and a bunch of metal boxes rattling in the walls all around me.
After landing in Frankfurt I went back to my seat and got my stuff together without disturbance, since Mr. SoCo was still in the restroom. As we disembarked (we got off the plane and walked down stairs right onto the tarmac! I was stoked about it, since I’ve only ever seen that in movies), I saw four German policemen escort him from the aircraft into a cop car parked next to the plane. He was in pretty bad shape, he was barely able to stand by himself. I was sad that he had so completely ruined his trip – since he was probably not going to make his connecting flight – but also that he had totally lost my respect. He’d seemed like a very decent guy and I was interested in getting to know him better before he made a complete and utter fool of himself.
So I made it to Europe, and I was in a country of which I knew the language enough to understand the signs and speak to the German TSA. Customs was the most relaxed I’ve ever seen. The guy who stamped my passport didn’t even talk to me, but instead continued his conversation with a fellow security guard while he glanced at me and then handed back my passport. He didn’t check for a visa or even ask my purpose for travelling. This was probably a good thing, even though I was actually quite proud of myself for using my German instead of defaulting to English. But I was utterly exhausted, the jet lag was setting in and I was starving but too nervous to eat. As I wandered through the airport I noticed that all the security and employees were riding bikes... in the airport. Almost every person I looked at said "Hallo" or "Guten Morgen" to me, and every old lady looked like Meryl Streep. That part particularly confused me, but looking back I was probably hallucinating from exhaustion. I found my gate and was just settling down to snooze before boarding when an announcement over the intercom informed us that the airplane was having technical difficulties and its inspection was setting back our departure time. After about an hour they finally announced that the plane was not fit for flying and they were trying to locate another aircraft. At this point I started to wonder if I would get to Amsterdam in time. It was 12:30 and I was supposed to meet my group at 2:00. It was only an hour flight, but the timing was getting tight. Half an hour later, after a gate change, lots of waiting, and a long bus ride to the plane, we were boarded and taking off. I fell asleep almost immediately and slept almost the entire flight, only waking up after we’d landed and finished taxiing (which is a clue as either how tired I was or how good at landing the pilot was). I got off the plane at 1:54, and started rushing through the airport, unsure of where I was going but knowing I had 6 minutes to get there. I had to run across what felt like the entire airport before I found the baggage claim area. I then had to sit for what felt like eons before the luggage came out. I grabbed mine and rushed past the security, and started searching the arrivals area for a group of travel-weary-looking girls roughly my age. Finally I spotted some faced I recognized from facebook and with a great sigh of relief checked in with the program coordinator and introduced myself to my new classmates.
I had very little time to rest though before we were swept out to a big tour bus and driven for an hour through breathtaking countryside accented with dramatic clouds and evening sunshine to a little hostel called ‘Stay Okay’ (which made me feel like we were heading to a self-esteem camp). It’s situated between fields full of horses and small hills covered in trees. We dropped off our luggage and went for a walk through windswept fields before dinner. The walk was lovely and very windy. We saw domesticated DEER grazing next to horses as well as pigmy goats and cows. It was a great chance to talk to some of my classmates and get fresh air after spending way too much time on planes and buses. We then had dinner and went to our 5-person rooms for the night. I was going to stay up and email family but I fell asleep while the internet was loading and ended up going to bed at 7:30. However I slept all night and was refreshed and ready for breakfast when it was served at 8:30 am. I now feel pretty on schedule, although I’m still a little tired and I may be getting sick because I’ve sneezed about 12 times an hour today. Which is excessive even for me.
Today, Sept. 6, we had some introductions and met some of our teachers. We also got some more info about the program and presented some of the homework we did over the summer. We each got a packet with a bunch of information in it, including a map of bike paths in Amsterdam, a tram card loaded with about 40 euro, and a museum pass that allows us free access to any museum in the Netherlands. AWESOME. I am going to seriously geek out about museums this trip.
I already really like all the girls in the program; even though I’m the only one from a West Coast school we have a lot in common. They’re making me want to visit the East Coast and Midwest. Every time I talk about home everyone exclaims about how much they love Seattle or how much they want to visit. I feel like I live in a very special part of the world and I'm happy to represent it here :)
I feel like you are an excellent representation of Seattle, other than the fact that you don't drink copious amounts of coffee.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad that you are there safely!