going dutch.: it's a small vorld

despite the fact that i’m on the other side of the world, a few days feel like many more when they’re internetless. yet a few days seems like a short amount of time for everything that’s happened in them.

first, there was the ordeal of actually getting to the other side of the world. i believe the word that best sums it up is ‘craptastic.’ the journey to leiden was to happen in three stages: a flight to the east coast, a flight from there to amsterdam, and a cab ride from there to leiden.

well. our first flight was delayed due to both weather and much-needed maintenance on the airplane’s lavatory and air conditioning—the two most crucial features of any airborne vehicle. [/sarcasm.] by the time the three other study abroad students from my program--people i didn’t know before study abroad orientation a couple of weeks ago but now call friends--and i tore through the airport to the gate, ‘home alone’ style, to find the plane still sitting there, the gate attendants refused to let us on, since they closed the door 10 minutes before departure.

it’s almost worse to know we just barely missed it than if we had missed it by a longshot.

so we stand in a customer service line for nearly an hour, or lie, in a.j.’s case:

hope comes in the form of a bubbly woman--how she stays so cheerful, i don’t know; not only does she work at an airport, but she also deals with the most frustrated and angry of travelers--who manages to book us on a full flight to london that night and from there to amsterdam. relieved, we go to the assigned gate.

half an hour later, that flight gets canceled, for reasons still unknown.

so we’re back in the customer service line, which has now doubled due to all the people who, 30 minutes earlier, were london-bound.

although we were told there were no more flights to amsterdam that night, and getting on the one tomorrow was unlikely, the woman who helped us out this time said she would have to ‘trick the computer’ into letting us on the flight. whatever she did, it worked. but we were still stuck for the night, and the airport wouldn't pay for accommodations (although we did each receive a $10 food voucher, which i spent on a tasty vegetarian sandwich the next night, and a $150 voucher to be used towards a future flight, which i will most likely never use since i now loathe this airline. i fly relatively frequently, and every single time i’ve flown on this airline i’ve had a delay).

so we were stuck for the night. but lucky for us, i have an aunt and uncle (officially the coolest people in the world) who live a short drive away, let the four of us crash there for the night and even ordered us pizza, and the airport did give us cab vouchers to get there and back. however, the cab ride to my aunt’s and uncle’s place turned out to be $20 more than the voucher was for--not helped, i’m sure, by the fact that the driver kept getting turned around and seemed to have no idea where he was going, despite the fact that he drove like a bat outta hell--and the cab taking us back from the airport didn’t accept the voucher at all.

but we did share the cab ride back with a really cool old couple from germany that we picked up along the way:

we actually ran into them again at the airport, where the woman waved at us and laughed, noting that it’s a ‘small vorld.’

we didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until we were actually on the plane.