Hanging out in Holland -- Airport

I tried to sleep on the 2-1/2 flight, but no luck. Fortunately, the minute the plane took off, all the teenagers fell asleep.

Navigating Schipol is always a challenge. It took me to figure out which way to go. I found the passport control and it said if you had more than 2 hours before your flight to wait. So I got in line a Starbucks. Ahhh... "filter" coffee that takes more than 5 minutes to drink...I've missed you! I pulled out my laptop and started to check out work emails. There were over 400! Using my hotspot, it took too long to file. So I went through all of them, deleted what I could, and responded to a few. Once my coffee was finished, I started moving to the gate.

I noticed this morning that my passport stamp was really faint. I actually panicked at first because I couldn't find it. The passport agent was looking hard for it, and I let him know where it was. We joked about the weak Italians. He gave it a proper stamp!

At my gate, I saw I still had 45 minutes to go before they started letting people in the gate area, so I walked back to the restaurant area. I found an Irish pub and dropped in. I should have had a Guiness, but went with a Bloody Mary. along with some "Bitter Balls," which are fritters stuffed with veggie and some sort of gravy. The funny thing is that everyone working here is Irish.

I got to the gate early because of the SSSS. I had to go into the back where they had me take off my shoes and jacket, and then they stabbed my hands, feet, shoes, bags, and laptop. There was a small nervous moment because I had been on a farm. And I know synthetic fertilizer can set them off. It was an organic farm, thankfully!

On the plane now, and I am almost home!Read more