The devil is in the details

I did not miss my plane

The bad news is that I had to be a bitch to do it.

I ended up being rather boring during my last night in Copenhagen because I was just exhausted and I was worried that I would not wake up in time to make it to the airport. My fears were not realized, and I got up, got ready, packed, checked out, had breakfast and made it to the airport without a hitch. I got to hang out in the loungy-room in Copenhagen again and drink infinity free diet cokes and read a book. (They had computers but no wireless access and the computers were in the smelly smoking section. Plus I figured that everyone here was asleep at 9-10 am Denmark time.) The flight from Copenhagen to Amsterdam was uneventful except for the copious amounts of food served in business class. Of course I ate it all because I would have felt guilty wasting food when I was gradually figuring out that there were quite a few people who desperately would have wanted that food in the US.

The plane landed about 10 minutes early in Amsterdam, which I was pretty happy about because I had a tight connection. I walked as fast as I could to get to the other terminal and assumed that I had plenty of time, although I was slightly worried. My plane was at 2:10 and I arrived in Amsterdam at 1:00. My boarding pass for the 2:10 flight said that boarding was at 12:30, which freaked me out a little. J. and P. had told me that I would have to go through a security check at the gate as well, so I wanted to make sure that I had plenty of time.

Between terminals there was a passport check area as well. We had to pass through a similar check when arriving in Amsterdam earlier in the week, but we assumed that was because we were entering the EU...they did not look at passports at all in Copenhagen. The passport check was preceded by a huge open lobby area. There were 6 stations open, and the entire lobby was full of people. There were some orderly lines but also a lot of mobs. I waited patiently in line for a few minutes, but I started to get increasingly stressed (it was getting to be 1:30) and I was really afraid of being stuck in Amsterdam. I knew that on KLM at least, there was only one Amsterdam to Boston flight per day, so I didn't know what would happen if I missed it, and I was not sure how I would contact people at home to tell them about a change of plans. Those of you who have seen my stressing in action can imagine the meltdown that was about to occur. While all this was going on, I noticed a lot of line cutters. So I became one of them. I think that I cut 1-200 people and got A LOT of dirty looks in the process, but I made it through by about 1:45. I felt kind of bad, but I had to do it. When I finally got to my gate I found out that they had already passed everyone through the second security check there (though they quickly checked me) and they announced business class boarding the moment I got through the security check. Our plane took off on time, so I don't think anyone thought about whether there were any passengers still stuck in the passport control area. I WOULD NOT have made the plane had I waited in line, and I am sure that if there were others from the flight who did wait...they missed the plane. As a side note: it was funny how people acted in the passport control mass of people. As you moved forward in the line, people were always coming up to you asking to jump in and telling you that their plane left in "x minutes", with x getting smaller and smaller as you got closer to the front of the line. Invariably, the people who were in that area of the line always replied "So is mine." People are such liars sometimes, though I am pretty much over my cutting and lying from yesterday, seeing as how I am here.

I had another great flight in business class...lots of food (which again I ate all of...I don't think I need to eat again for a week.), lots of alcohol, lots of room.

JP and her boyfriend picked me up from the airport and drove me home. I was pretty wired when I got back so I acted a little crazy for a while. My roommate K. had moved out the day before and my new roommate A. had just moved in, so I'm sure I made a great first impression. I crashed relatively early. All in all, a pretty good day.

posted by Immunegirl @ 10:12 AM