Schipol - Chaos in the Cold - Part II

T-DAY +3 – Sunday 7:30 GMT 12/5/10

Wakeup from the best sleep in days, at least 2 days I know for sure. Look outside. “Huuummmm, not snowing, overcast, things look more dreary here in the daylight. Irina!!!! Lets get up and get going. I’m hungry, General Wou’s extravaganza has worn off”.

“Ok, Ok Potrick. Don’t shout so loud.” And Irina pulls the covers back over her head. Knowing resistance is useless; I climb back under the warm down duvet and wait for the 8:00 wakeup call.

Seems like only seconds later; BZZZZZ, BBBZZZZZZZZZ, BBBBBZZZZZZZ!!!! “Potrick what is that horrible sound” Irina sleepily asks.

“It’s our wake up call, move-it, move-it. Out of the rack! We have things to do and places to go. Irina don’t go back to sleep!” Getting Russians up early has always been hard, but today we have another full agenda, no slacking or snoozing. Get back to the airport, get our boarding pass, call Vicky with an update, and get the heck out of this Schipol .

After our walk to the Chinese restaurant last night I knew there was no breakfast place around, so we are stuck with the Zankenburg morning special. “Irina, better dress warmly. I am sure it will cold down there in the breakfast salon.” With scarves, gloves and coats we are finally on our way. Stop at the desk, pay 18 Euros to enjoy the hotel’s epicurean specialties, and then walk into an abandoned breakfast room.

“Lets see what we have here. Cold corn flakes cereal; no, not this morning. Umm, the usual sausage and cheese; no, ate too much of that yesterday; my system will be stopped up for weeks. Aaahhh, my favorite, a hard-boiled egg; I’ll take one of those. Some kind of hard-tack crackers; no, not with my egg where is some bread? Here we go, a little toast would be great.” Pop’er in the toaster, minute’s later burnt toast pops out. “Well plain bread, a little butter and jelly will have to do. Geezzz, I don’t see anything else”, grab some coffee and get started. Irina has about the same luck as I do building her breakfast.

4 minutes after sitting down, I’m finished with the 1^st course. “Irina, I’m still hungry and I will go carefully scour the area, maybe something was hiding.” Nope, nothing here, have to lower my expectations. Maybe some of these hard-tack crackers, probably leftovers from the Dutch 1600’s exploration voyages around the horn of Africa. Have to try’em otherwise I will be starving shortly.

“Yes, Potrick, it’s not like Italy is it.”

That’s kinda an understatement I thought sitting there in a cold, minimal breakfast spread, by our selves gray skies with wisps of snow falling. Then some fellow strandees came in to cheer things up; after a while we struck up a conversation. A very nice Belgium couple on their way to Kenya for a little holiday. “That’s a place I have never wanted to visit” I thought to my self. (FYI A few days later in St Petersburg watching TV news Irina saw they were having riots in Kenya. We wondered if our breakfast mates were caught up in it. Again I thought “that’s a place I never want to visit!”) A little more coffee to amortize out that overpriced breakfast, and we headed back to the room to clean up and make our 9:00ish shuttle to Schiphol

T-DAY +3 – Sunday 10:30ish GMT 12/5/10

“Schipol my favorite, how I missed you.“ Walking back into the terminal “Irina, don’t you feel like you have returned to your home???” But it looks a little more cheerful this morning than when we left last night. “Lets see where do we need to go to get our boarding pass and get the heck out of here!”

A perky little blond KLM service girl smilingly directs us to Desk 17. I thought she either has the gift of quick recovery from a hard night or she wasn’t on duty last night. I wonder if everyone’s mood has improved.

Arriving at the corridor leading to Desk 17 my mood instantly went back to the Schipol mood of last night. Schipol welcomes you to join us in another 1000+ person line to obtain your boarding pass. Your wait time will be….Unknown!!!

“OK Irina it’s back to last night’s playbook, you get in line and I will make sure we are in the right place and you wait here.” I wander down to the end of the corridor and actually see the Desk 17. It was just another airport service center, there all pretty much the same: about 6 windows all staffed with friendly, smiling, helpful KLM servers. “Just like last night” I thought.

I found a uniformed Schipol server around the Desk 17, asked her whether this is the place to rebook and get a new boarding pass.

She quickly came back with the expected disappointing answer, “Yes, but of course you must wait in line!”

“Seems like some things never change, maybe lines have some kind of culturally ingrained DNA for these people or maybe some kind of Socialist/Communist thing” I speculate.

Irina loves standing in lines to pay her bills, thinks its cheerful and an opportunity to see life. The concept of using the computer to pay bills and quit wasting hours of her life in line just doesn’t seem reasonable. All these 1000s of people here last night and again today don’t seem upset either. Yeah it's gota either be a DNA thing or many years of training.

They all have socialized medicine where one can easily wait hours/days/months/years/your life for a medical procedure. Hey, what the heck I am sure 4 or 10 hours waiting in the airport is nothing to these socialist/communists. Americans have a little less tolerance for this inconvenience. I can’t imagine anyone in So Texas waiting in lines like this unless at the end you get a free ticket to the Super Bowl and the Dallas Cowboys are playing.

Turning away to return to Irina and the back of the line I notice a bunch of electronic boarding pass dispensers, “Maybe I can rebook at these rather than stand in the line” hopefully I dream. There’s the KLM service lady in the area I’ll ask her. I didn’t notice the line of 8-10 people waiting to talk to the same service lady. “Compared to 1000s, it’s worth the time to wait for her time.”

A bit later it’s my turn. I relate the situation: flights canceled, need to rebook, and get a boarding pass. “Can I do it on these machines?” I ask her.

“No, these will only print a boarding pass if you are booked on a flight ” she explains. “You need get back in the line for Desk 17 – Next….”

“OK, I wonder if I can find Irina in this mass of humanity?”

After walking and walking, there she is still almost at the end of the line right where I left her 20 minutes ago. Join her and explain the bad news. “I really don’t know how we will make our flight, boarding will start in a couple of hours and you have not even moved 10 feet.”

“What to do” Irina replies.

Yeah, she’s right might as well just go with the flow and relax. I start talking to the guy next to us in line, kinda a geeking looking person working on his computer while it is balanced on push rail of the baggage cart. Said he is trying to change some tickets to Cancun or something. “Ah, Cancun! The weather there should be a lot nicer than here, we were there a couple of years ago in December. Very nice, you’ll love it. What are you going to do there, hang on the beach or see the sights?”

“Actually I’m going there for a business convention” he replied.

My brain goes into hyper search mode. “What was going on in Cancun on the news lately? Dang it, I know I heard something…….Ahhhh Yessss. The global warming fraud convention. All the hypesters, at least those that still believe in the fraud were meeting there. He quickly confirms my suspicions and I just say “I am sure you will have a great time there, just be careful and don’t loose your head to the drug gangsters.” How long can one bite one’s tongue? It’s going to be a long wait – “Potrick change the subject and keep your mouth shut”.

“So how about these delays and lines for everything?” I ask the global warming hypester.

“Actually I called KLM in America and got my flight rebooked last night, no waiting there, got right through. I am just here to change some other flight arrangements since I have nothing else to do, besides I find lines an interesting way to pass time.”

“Bingo – Confirmation, socialists, True Global Warming Believers, they all like to wait in lines, what else do they have to do in life, watch the sea level rise??”

“That’s interesting, I hadn’t thought about calling the US. Tried last night to get KLM, impossible, on hold forever.” I said and then thought maybe I could try the help desk on my new American Express card. They are supposed to offer that type of services. “Irina, I am going to call the US and see if be can get rebooked, then we could just go to the boarding pass machines and get out of this line. Just stay in line, I’ll be back.”

Found the phone and tried to figure out how to use it. Ten minutes later finally got AMEX and the service rep said she would see what can be done, just need to call back in about 15 minutes. Returning to Irina, who had moved probably 5 feet forward I told her they might be able to help.

Twenty minutes later after our little group in the line has pretty well bonded, Irina and I ask them to save our place, watch our bags and we will be back after we phone. Finally re-connect with the service rep and she tells me there are no flights into St Petersburg for the next 2 days! Irina is kinda excited that we will get a little vacation in Amsterdam at KLM’s expense. Then representative tells me we can fly to Paris today, spend the night and tomorrow fly to St Petersburg. “That’s better than 2 more nights here” I say. “Let me check with my wife. Irina…..”. I relate the options.

“Absolutely not Potrick!!! You know the French, they would never let me out of the airport, we would be sleeping on the terminal floor at Charles DeGaul!!!” At least here I have the 24 hour visa and can stay in a hotel.”

“Ummmm, mame, the French option is not going to work for us. I guess we will just have to work through our problem here. Thanks for your help, goodby.”

“Potrick, we have another problem!!! I just realized it is 11:30 and my 24- hour visa expires in half an hour. I must go to the immigration office and get another visa otherwise I violate the rules. If I don’t I will be come an illegal alien and never get another visa into Europe. Quickly lets go!!!”

Swinging by our place in line, tell our baggage holders we have another problem and will be back as soon as its fixed. Leaving them “I wonder if these guys are starting to think we are terrorists?”

You have heard that irritatingly, incessant TCA warning “Don’t leave your baggage unattended. Unattended baggage will be taken to the bomb squad and blown to bits. Thank you. The current threat level is ORANGEISH RED, DON”T……..” Just realized Schipol doesn’t have all that background BS. How nice, but how can they control the terrorists, don’t they realize the danger they are in?

So we search for an immigration office and this time it was easy. A new visa is obtained in a matter of minutes. Things are improving, now if we could just get this line moving faster.

Returning to our personal baggage handlers we notice that everyone has bottled water. Apparently KLM is watering and feeding the strandees (aka “waiters” since all they do is wait in lines) to keep them from getting restless and start some kind of revolution. “Potrick, I am thirsty can you find me some water.”

“Yes, dear I’m thirsty too. Will check it out”. Wandering around I see that people have not only water but other snacks. Looks like all the good stuff doesn’t get much further than the first 75 meters of the line. So I grab the Schpol survival treats and return to our position bearing gifts.

Another hour and it’s getting close to lunchtime. Although I haven’t been involved in much strenuous activity that pitiful breakfast ran out about an hour so ago. “Irina, we are not going to make the flight today. I hope we will go tomorrow. But the good news is that we will be getting some lunch. Look they are handing out sandwiches!!! Lets go get some, I’m starving.”

What a cornucopia of free stuff, I’m starting to like this socialism. But of course there is always a price to pay – and ours is another day stuck in Amsterdam. You know, even free stuff gets old after while if you can’t do what you want to do.

The hours keep passing – about 1:00, only 4 hours waiting in line and we are getting close to the end. Then some TV station shows up and picks me to interview. Unfortunately Irina was off somewhere or she could have given the interview. By that time I didn’t have much good to say about the situation, other than we appreciated the immigration office late last night giving people 24 hour visas so they could leave the terminal. I am sure nobody wanted to hear some old angry guy from So Texas complaining about their Schipol.

At last we get our number and in 15 more minutes we are talking to another KLM blond, booking babe about our situation. She sweetly says “oh you are already booked for tomorrow’s flight and here is your boarding pass.”

I listened to those words and couldn’t believe what she just said. “we are already booked!!!!” WTF have we been standing in line for the last 4 hours for!!!! We could gone to the boarding pass machines, put in our names and received a boarding pass 4 hours ago – contrary to what the DS KLM babe at the boarding pass machine area told me 4 hours ago.”

I asked the blond boarding-pass babe “ could we have gone to the boarding pass machines” pointing to the area about 20 meters away “ and gotten our boarding pass?”

“Why Yes, I guess you could have, now that I think about it.” She replied.

Whoaaa!!! Now I was just a little upset looking for a wall to ram my head into. This has got to be the biggest display of incompetence that I have ever seen or been in. Instead of 20 people handing out food and water they could have had one person with a mega phone go down the line and tell people they could try the boarding pass machines to receive their flight confirmation and boarding pass. It’s a good thing the TV people interviewed me before I found out this tidbit of information or my interview would have been nothing but lots of BLEEP-OUTS. Maybe it’s just me, all the socialists don’t seem upset, probably “just another typical day – what’s another line? At least were not working!!”

T-DAY +3 – Sunday 14:30ish GMT 12/5/10

But wait there is more! Next we were told that we should proceed to the Stranded Flyers Service Desk at other side of the airport and receive our hotel assignment, and Care Package (some kind of survival stuff for strandees/waiters). “Irina, that’s were we were last night with Paul and Tayna. If the lines are as long as last night’s, it’s back to the Swankenburg and another General Wou extravaganza.”

Arriving at the baggage area we see the Stranded Flyers Service Desk and there is no line. I pinch myself to be sure I wasn’t dreaming. Well 4-5 people were waiting, but that’s no stinken line for Schipol. We quickly get our billeting assignment, chow tickets, and transportation orders before the mirage vanishes.

“Irina, I think we need to get to the hotel first and dump our bags then see what we might have time and the energy to do.” So it’s off to the Ibis hotel. A quick bus ride; check in, check out room and realize how tired we are.

“Irina, I think it’s too cold and too late for town. Lets just go back to the Schipol mall, look around, maybe get a drink or something to eat.” You exit the airport through a nice shopping mall so it was something easy to do and hopefully interesting. Without knowing the area and having our heavier winter jackets going to town just didn’t sound like a good idea.

The mall was nice, nothing real special and, as always, prices in EU are just a tad more than we are used to. Finally headed back, discovered that the Ibis’ main business is servicing strandees/waiters or low price salesmen meetings. The cafeteria which accepted our meal ticket reminded Irina of Soviet times and me of my freshman dormitory. No threat to General Wou here. We spotted a number of our Russian travel companions going for thirds and the young chick that attached herself to our clan was back at it, hustling the young guys.

Enough is enough. Lets go back to the room and for excitement brush our teeth with toothpaste to close out the day. Gota be ready to go tomorrow.

T-DAY +4 – Monday 8:00ish GMT 12/6/10

“Irina, I slept terrible on this bed. The mattress has all these little holes in it, like swiss cheese – really weird and hard as a brick. Lets get up and get going.”

Throwing the curtains open I look outside to a view of nothing but gray!!!. “OH NO IRINA ,FOG, really thick fog.” I listen for the sounds of any planes taking off or landing. None.

“I don’t like the looks of this Irina, planes can take off but if it is really bad they may not be able to land here. And you know what that means, we could be stuck here again and I would have to sleep on that hard Swiss cheese mattress again!”

“Potrick, I can’t worry about that now, I’m hungry. Lets go to the cafeteria and see what they have for breakfast.”

Might as well, can’t be worse than last night and can’t do anything about the weather. Breakfast turned out way better than the Zwankenburg 18 Euro stale toast treat. Maybe things were starting to look up. Went back to the room to clean up and check weather on the TV – nope, need to buy a TV card to watch. Tried the Internet – nope, no access need to buy an access card. Was scared to try the toilet may have to pay for paper. Seemed like the mattress wasn’t the only cheesy thing about the room. Packed and left.

T-DAY +4 – Monday 10:30ish GMT 12/6/10

Arrived back at our home away from home – Schipol Airport. “Irina don’t you just feel at home here now, its so comfortable, we know where everything is, and the way the fog looks we may make this our home for a few more days.” The fog was still a concern and I could see that some flights were getting delayed.

“Potrick, we have nothing to do, nothing to read, lets go to the library.” We ambled down the aisle to this little airport library. Sat down and browsed through a few interesting books on Amsterdam and the Netherlands.Pleasant way to spend some spare time.





Potrick reading

Less industrious strandees

Watched a weather report on a nearby TV and the Paris Airports were closed today due to snow. “Irina, did you see that? If we had gone to Paris yesterday we would have been stuck there today. Good thing you have that visa problem. Lets head toward our gate and see what’s going on”

T-DAY +4 – Monday 12:30ish GMT 12/6/10

“Well, it’s still foggy and lots of flights have been delayed. But it looks like ours is still on time and we even have a plane at our gate. Irina, I think we’er gona get out of here!!!” It was looking ok, but after the last 3 days I won’t believe it until we lift off.

All the familiar faces from the last 3 days were milling around in the gate area. Approaching boarding time I can tell the Russian are again getting restless. The PA system crackles “Ladies and gentlemen we are ready to start boarding for St Petersburg…..”. The Russians are getting excited and on the move, herding their way closer to the gate. “Ladies and gentlemen at this time we will be boarding 1^st class, Elite Status……”.

The end of the announcement wasn’t heard as a Russian guy yells “I don’t care about 1^st class, I been here 3 days I am 1^st class and boarding now!!” At that point orderly boarding collapsed.

As always I make sure Irina and I are close to the door. “Irina, lets go. Just push into line or we won’t get any overhead.” So we shoved and moved with the masses “butt to belly” all the way to our assigned seats. Staked out our overhead space and threw our bags in, then relaxed and prayed we would get out of here.

Shortly thereafter engines were started, we taxied and left Schipol. See you in 3 months and hope we don’t have any trouble then.

T-DAY +4 – Monday 22:00ish GMT 12/6/10

As the old song goes “Back in the USSR”. Well not exactly but the airport compared to Schipol does have a certain USSR look & feel even still.

Next stop, immigration and the usual inquisitive examination of my passport; in particular, matching the picture with the person standing in front of them. For some reason Russian Immigration Officers reviewing the passports are always young girls and never has my approval been accomplished in less than 5 minutes. I smile, frown, look serious and if lucky they waive me through without calling another officer in for a second opinion. Tonight I was lucky; she passed me through in 4 minutes.

Baggage actually started rolling out quickly and soon our first bag appeared. “Well at least we have our clothes Irina. If you want take your carry-on and this bag on out. I will be there soon as I get our other bag with all the Tolic toys and gifts in it.” Before I could finish the sentence Irina was through customs and vanished.

20 minutes later it was evident that I was just seeing the same bags going around the conveyor belt and none of them were ours. Finally word came “that is all, no more.” What was that I said earlier about “luck” as I was walking to the lost baggage booth?

Fortunately the girl at the baggage booth spoke English asking for my documents. I handed them over and she handed me forms in quad duplicate saying “you viell please feel thesz out”.

So I started meticulously as possible answering all the questions about the bag, it’s contents, size, color, etc, etc. “They obviously don’t have copiers here,” I thought. “but I am sure every Russian has one to go with their computer at home. Oh well.”

Finally finished and handed the papers to the lost baggage booth babe. “Sir, you need to fill theez in here” and returned the papers.

One more time “Miss, here you are. I hope they are complete.” She looks at the documents and then goes to some kind of folder. I’m thinking this is progress.

“Mester Krisco, we have your bag. It arrived last night.” She told me. Well our luck is changing, this is good news. We proceed to the baggage holding room and I see it over in the corner. Irina was scared to death that if it sat there overnight all of Tolics toys would be stolen. Well it had some kind of security plastic bands holding the zippers closed so that is about as much as one can hope for in Russia; we’ll check it all at home. I signed the paper work and headed out into the Russian cold.

There was Vicky, Tolic with a big smile in his new crown and cape Irina made for him, and a happy Irina. We were back finally.

Footnote - During the past 2 weeks since arriving in Russia it seems like almost every day we are hearing reports that many the major hub airports are closed for weather. I hope it's over by March.