The biggest problem with traveling to Europe (including Britain!) is the time difference. This inevitably means taking a red eye flight and arriving in Europe at some ungodly hour of the morning. I hate red eye flights with a passion. In theory, it's a good idea: Leave at night, sleep on the plane, and arrive bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready to face a new day. In practice, I have never been so lucky. Although I am very skilled at catching up on my sleep while reading for class or attending lectures, sleeping on trans-Atlantic flights is not an area of my expertise. When I flew to London, I was very fortunate to be able to take a flight that left in the morning and arrived at Heathrow around 10pm. This was absolutely brilliant because, after having to get to the airport at 5am and undergoing a grueling day of travel, I was more than ready to call it a day when I arrived, despite it only being about 5pm in New York. If only all flights to Europe were so convenient!
Unfortunately, the only nonstop flights from Newark to Amsterdam are red eye flights, so when I landed in Amsterdam at 8am local time I was dreading going through passport control, collecting my luggage, and finding my way to my hotel. Some of you, dear readers, may recall the great difficulty I had in entering Britain to do research a few months ago. Expecting the worst this time, I had armed myself with documents from sundry funding bodies, universities, and banks. After waiting no more than fifteen minutes in line, the immigration officer called me forward and asked me a few brief questions. He then jokingly suggested nine months would be more than enough time to study Dutch history since his country was so small and without further ado stamped my passport and waved me through. It was painless. (At this point, it is well worth mentioning that I did not need to apply for a visa in advance since for people in my position the Dutch prefer applications for long term visas to be submitted after arriving. This no doubt sped my entry as I was only given the standard 90 day entry clearance, but more on this anon.)
As far as airports go, Schiphol isn't too bad of a place. It has various shops, restaurants, and currency exchanges – all of the normal amenities. It even has a small branch of the Rijksmuseum which displays different temporary exhibitions. More importantly, it has a Burger King where I proceeded to spend the next hour killing time and waiting for it to be a suitable hour to leave for my hotel. On my last trip to the Netherlands I also stopped at the Burger King where, bleary eyed after a long flight, I attempted to purchase breakfast. After swiping my credit card several times and trying to explain in both Dutch and English that my card did not have a PIN, I came to the painful conclusion that Dutch Burger Kings, unlike their American and British counterparts do not accept credit cards. They only accept debit cards. Having learned my lesson last time, I now paid in cash without making a scene.
After stretching out breakfast for as long as I could, my baggage train and I proceeded to wander about the airport for the next hour and half spending most of our time in a peculiar seating area separated from the baggage claim by a glass wall. In the wall on either side of the glass were telephone headsets by which people from one side could speak with people from the other, much like one might see in a prison movie. I am not sure what the purpose of these phones was as my fellow travelers seemed to much prefer trying to shout at each other through the glass and using a combination of gestures.
Eventually having tired of people watching, I at last left Schiphol and began to make my way to Utrecht.
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| Schiphol, sort of... |
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