Diary Entry: Friday 10 August and Saturday 11 August, 2018

Moving Diary, Friday to Saturday; Flight from Denver to Salt Lake City on Friday, then Salt Lake City to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

Entry date: 13 August, 2018 (Monday)

The Domestic Flight

We flew from Denver to Salt Lake City on Friday afternoon, and it was mainly uneventful, my favorite type of flight. We flew Delta, which provides gluten free snacks, so they’re my favorite right now. 🙂

The International Flight

We had a 5 hour layover in Salt Lake City, and then the plane was delayed by 1 hour in leaving the US (Salt Lake City) on Friday night, but it’s all mainly a sleepy blur. I watched a few movies with Billy, including The Color Purple and part of Legally Blond. Otherwise I kept trying to sleep, and I got a few hours of sleep in the middle hours of the flight. There was a child behind me that would kick the seat occasionally, but mainly I was kept awake by the fellow in front of me who was very active in his seat. I tend to curl up against all the hard surfaces around me, so I was somewhat restricted in that. The plane crew were all pleasant and got us the gluten free meals early in the food service, so that was nice.

I also enjoyed the multi-lingual announcements, where they’d do it in Dutch and then again in English. I was able to pick up some of what they were saying in Dutch before they’d switch to English.

Navigating the Airport

We arrived at Schiphol around 3 pm, maybe later. I was super thirsty near the end of the flight and drank every last bit of beverage I could get my hands on, so getting off the plane I had one priority – find the nearest toilets!

Bright yellow-orange signs help weary travelers find the Baggage Hall and Arrivals Hall.

After a short stop, we followed the bright yellowish-orange-ish signs to the Baggage Hall and Arrivals Hall, where they process you. That is, you stand in either the EU passport holder line (reasonably short) or the Everyone Else line, which takes a bit longer. I think we may have been the only flight at that time because the line really wasn’t very bad. It was moving almost constantly, and I think it took us only about 40 minutes to get through.

We had taken a suitcase, our two large backpacks, Billy’s work backpack, and a small satchel for me. In Denver, we checked the suitcase and one of the backpacks, so in the airports we were only carrying one backpack each, and I could fit the satchel in the backpack. It was a reasonably easy way to travel.

So waiting in line at Customs/Immigration (I’m not sure what it’s called these days) was pretty easy. The agent asked us the usual questions, and we mentioned the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty, and he seemed to know about it, so that was neat. Maybe he was just being nice and playing along, but I felt welcomed. 🙂

We were approved for entry, and headed off down the halls to find our checked luggage, which was down a long set of hallways, but eventually we came out and there they were, going around on the carousel. We grabbed our things and made our way to the Nothing to Declare exit, which took us to a large open area with food, ATMs, kiosks for transportation passes, and so on.

Taking the Train

Billy knew that we wanted to take the train and he remembered that they are underground, so we looked for that entry. It’s in the middle of the area, but easy to miss. Hiding in plain sight. Thankfully we found it and remembered to “tap in” – use our transit cards on the automatic stand – before heading down.

We were headed to Arnhem, so our options were to either wait 20 minutes and get a train to Utrecht and then Arnhem (reasonably direct, as the crow flies), or take the train arriving just then, which took a large swoop around to the south through Rotterdam and Breda, then come back up through a few other cities and up to Arnhem. Both were going to arrive in Arnhem around the same time, so we took option B, the sit down sooner option. 🙂

Phone a Friend

When we  visited Arnhem in January, we met with a lovely family who also boardgames, so one of them met us at the Arnhem train station with their car and took us to their house. We happened to be in time for dinner, so we got a lovely home-cooked, hot meal at the end of a long day. They had also been helping us arrange for a place to stay when we first arrived, so after dinner they drove us to the house where we’re renting a room. It’s about a 10-15 minute walk from their house (we have discovered by walking over a few times since then), but we were grateful for the car ride that first night after a very long day.

First Sleep (Jet-Lag Style)

I think we fell asleep around 10 pm local time Saturday night. I woke up around 3:30 am Sunday but managed to get back to sleep a few hours later and slept in most of the morning. I had a similar night Sunday into Monday, but stayed up until 2 am, woke for a bit, and then fell back asleep for most of the morning.

That’s the recap for our arrival into the Netherlands! More diary entries to come chronicling our daily adventures. 🙂