Robin

This morning started at 5 am to drive to Schiphol airport, at bit early but you never know.

So at 5:15 I am getting in the elevator to go down to the car, while going down I try to make the “famous” selfie shot in the elevator as I always do when traveling but reaching the fist floor the doors don’t open, they make a lot of noise but do not move. I tried to go back to the second floor without any luck, but I still won’t open, so back to the thirt floor to see if that helps, and here they open very slowly, This is my cue to get out and walk down, first crisis averted but no selfie.

The drive to Schiphol went without any problems, got there on 06:24. The gate at the garage greeted me with my name, so the reservation worked. Drove up a few floors and parked the car close to the exit.

I went to the baggage drop-off and somehow, I managed to fill the suitcase with 19 kilos which was below the 23 limit, but still what did I bring except some tripods a portable monitor and a keyboard, just some essential things……

The real fun started after the customs check.

Only a one hour delay, also we were in a part of the terminal that uses busses to get to the plane. Arond 10:00 the boarding started, the first bus showed up and it was filled up with first/bussiness class and parents with children. I got on the second bus and we drove to the plane where we stood there because the cleaners were still busy, we waited around 15 minutes in a packed bus after which we drove back to the terminal because of the rules you may not be waiting outside the terminal, so everybody back into the terminal. this was also a problem because everybody was standing near the entrance because they were preparing for the next bus.

After an hour the boarding started again, and this time we were allowed to leave the bus and get on the plane.

We were two hours late because the plane that was planned to take us to LA had too many problems and this.was the.plane that landed this morning coming from LA.

We made it with a 50 minute delay from our normal time.

Customs only took 47 minutes this time, which is a win this time.

The transport to Anaheim I booked only waited 45 minutes after the plane has landed, but she was still around and it took not very long to find her outside with a phone call. The ride was better than with the supershuttle I used to take. We arrived just past 3, the time I could check-in.

---