A Bonus Day in Amsterdam

If you watch th.e Amazing Race you always see the participants racing through airports, just making connections, and hopping from plane to cars, buses, or trains.  Reality (no pun intended) is a little different. When you have a tight connection because of a weather delay, everything goes slowly when you arrive at the airport.  We arrived at JFK/New York at 4:35 instead of 3:00. Our connection to Amsterdam departed at 6:00.  As we landed we thought we could pick up our bags, go to KLM ticketing, get through security, and get to our gate for the last boarding call.  This is where everything slowed down.  The jetway was not ready for the plane, the full plane emptied so slowly, and they changed baggage carousels on us.  Once we had our bag we waited for a train to get us to the KLM terminal.  We arrived there at 5:30 and went to the first agent available. When I said we wanted to check our bags for the 6:00 flight, she said "you won't make it.". International flights need baggage an hour before the flight, and security was between us and the gate.  After searching on her computer for options she suggested flying standby at 11:00 that night, and get to Amsterdam at noon Friday. The downside to that is we would miss our connection to Kilimanjaro by two hours.  We opted for the overnight flight and planned to finds a place in Amsterdam to stay until the next Kili flight on  .

To our surprise we were met in Amsterdam by a Rotary member from Charlotte who grew up in Amsterdam. She came early to visit family.  She saw on FaceBook and emails that we were arriving late.  She took us to a nearby hotel and will give us a ride to the airport in the morning.  She will be climbing Kilimanjaro with the group.  So everything worked out.

We spent our free afternoon walking around Amsterdam, a city of bicycles and canals.  It was good to walk in the sunshine.  Kilimanjaro is only an hour different from Amsterdam, so today allowed us to adjust to the time change between legs of travel.  So we had a bonus day in Amsterdam!

One other note. It is ironic that a couple days before we climb Africa's highest peak, we walked around a city that has much land below sea level. Netherlands has been reclaiming land from the sea for centuries.

Internet access will dictate how frequently I can update the blog.  The six day climb is Monday - Saturday.  I will meet my fellow climbers tomorrow.  Looking forward to seeing the mountain tomorrow.