Well it is official, I am in a city where I don’t know anyone, can barely talk to anyone, and everything I want to do is so difficult that it is not even worth the effort. I am sitting in Amsterdam’s airport, seven hours into my twenty-three hour layover. I am so close to being home that this stage is just so unexplainable to me.
My body is completely worn out, I am hallucinating from sleep deprivation, my body is turning against me, and I’m pretty sure I’ve had a fever since the flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam. I just keep telling myself it is so worth it.
Last Tuesday, which was five days ago, I found out that my ticket was booked and I was flying to South Africa on Saturday. Before that, I didn’t want to get my hopes up; I wasn’t planning on physically planning to leave until it was finalized. When it was, my house became party central. I would get up every morning to people drinking. I would leave and come home to people drinking, I would go to bed to people drinking and wake up once more to people drinking.
Five days of partying at my house, and finals being done, at least for me, took its toll on me. I was usually up until five in the morning, if not all night, and waking up again at nine to take Mike to work. I had the mentality that I was leaving, and there were things I wasn’t fully o.k with leaving the way they were and to make every day meaningful and memorable seemed way more important than sleep. Come on, I don’t believe in twelve, twenty-first, twelve, but you know that everyone wanted to party like it was the last night we had. It was for me in at least two ways. I was up until five, my alarm set for an early eight o’clock in the morning, to be finish packing, shower, get ready, take my time to be at the airport by noon. Well with the little sleep that I got, I slept right through that alarm, and woke up just before ten. It was a crazy rush to get everything I needed and ready.
I still left quite a few essentials behind. The goodbyes weren’t as hard as I thought they were going to be, I also didn’t get to say goodbye to a lot of the people I wanted to, but oh well. I zipped through security pretty fast and checked in at my gate. I talked to a few different people before-hand and then my name was called to the desk again. The flight attendant informed me that they had to move my seat to seat a family together, and then she whispered so no one else would hear; “You’re now in first class, merry Christmas!” I was thrilled, and thanked her before boarding first. I was lucky to be seated in a window seat, which is always debatable but the reason I prefer it is because it is way easier to sleep propped up against the side of the plain then it is to sleep in an isle or middle seat, I was also lucky enough to have no one sitting next to me. The flight was a little scary at first, the previous flight has caused a few things to break that needed to be replaced before we took off, which made me a little paranoid but it was smooth sailing after we took off and a very short enjoyable flight. Once I arrived in Minneapolis, I was very proud of myself for finding my way to my next gate in less than ten minutes. I have been to a lot of crazy big airports in my life, and this was my first time in Minneapolis’s one. I am not sure if you have been there, but it’s crazy. All the seats by my gate were tall bar stools, pulled up to tables with two attached I-pads each.
Even the restaurants’ tables had I-pads attached to them. I didn’t get to spend much time there, since it was a twenty minute wait in-between arrival and departure. The flight was super bumpy and there was a ton of turbulence, but I must say that Delta has stepped up their game when it comes to their little personal TVs you can watch. I haven’t made this journey in almost four years, and the last time I did, we didn’t even have them. I have also been making the same journey, before that since I was seven. Now, I can actually bare to listen to the music on there. I made a playlist with some names like Deadmau5 and Lana Del Ray, and a few other really good djs. I was able to watch the Dark Knight Rises, Brave, the Walking Dead, Dexter, Game of Thrones, and that Timothy Green movie that I can’t really remember the title of at all.
Also they stepped up their food. Airplane food to me, reminds me of shitty hospital food, if I had to choose between one and the other, I wouldn’t eat at all. This time, they actually had vegetarian options, which is the first time since I was seven I was able to experience that! Only it crazy burnt my tongue that was moments away from being fully healed from the last time I burnt it. I was impressed. Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep on the eight hour flight.
Iam now on six hours of sleep for the past five days. We arrived almost half an hour early to Amsterdam, which was nice, however, it made my wait longer than it needed to be. There is nowhere to sleep in an airport, unless I want to go lay my head on some stranger’s shoulders, and I don’t want to waste my money getting a hotel room and risking the possibility of missing my flight by leaving the airport. Also they only allow you 60 minutes of wireless internet time. So out of the twenty-three hours I am stuck here, I can only go online for one of those hours. My phone doesn’t work overseas, even though it is an international phone, and the only way for me to communicate is through Facebook, or Skype and of course, welcome to Europe, the outlets are all different. My phone and laptop were dead within the first hour of me being here. So now I’m super bummed, because I really wanted to leave the airport, and go explore and go to places, but I’m kind of not willing to spend money on cabs and food bills, weed bills and tips. I also didn’t want to leave and go out in to the city by myself with no form of communication. I’ve watched hostel way too many times. I do however have another excruciating long wait in Amsterdam on my way back to Boise, so maybe I’ll do it then. I literally sat in this seat for four hours, occasionally reading, which was really hard because this was when I started to get all weird, and couldn’t pay any attention to the words on the page, so most of the time, I just looked out the window. I started chewing gum and uncontrollably shaking, now I have the worst jaw pain, I can’t even yawn, my tongue is all burnt and cut up, I’m super shaking, hearing things and seeing things that aren’t there, and I feel like I have a fever, I’ve had two super bad nose bleeds, one on the plane, and one when I got back. I have also been drinking more water than I usually would, and still this happens?!
I exchanged some money, because I could no longer take what was going on, and purchased a plug adapter, so now I can charge up all my electronics, just can’t get online, because one hour goes by so fast and I’ve used up my time. I cannot check in until it is tomorrow, and apparently I cannot by anything until tomorrow, because apparently it’s tax free. You have to buy it on the day you leave, even though I have a flight number, and the money. So there is my little rant, I am waiting a bit to go attempt to take a shower, because they wouldn’t let me buy any shampoo, conditioner or body wash until It’s the same day I’m departing. I’ll just get gifts I was planning on getting on my way back.
On a funnier note, to lighten up the mood, when I first got here, there was this cute little girl, no older than five, dancing on a beam by the window, and constantly telling her father to watch her, and pay attention. He didn’t even notice she was talking to him, so she kept dancing, and even more into it after that. My first thought was like, there’s a future stripper with daddy issues for you.
And the toilet at the airport I went to, decided it wasn’t going to flush for me, and there was this huge long line waiting to get a seat, and I felt so bad, walking up to the next girl, like, that’s not going to flush, I would not recommend going in there.
Anyways, my plan is to board the final flight in fifteen hours and go to sleep the minute we take off, I’m just worried, I can’t last fifteen more hours.
10:57PM- I have now been here for thirteen hours! Past half way, I went out and bought myself some dinner and coffee and that’s made me not so crazy, I tried to nap, but its hard with hundreds of people constantly rushing and bustling by you. I’m really annoyed at the “kid’s forest” it keeps making crow noises lol, every two seconds. In an hour it will be a new day though, and I’ll be able to go get my ticket and find out what gate I gotta go to, and if I have to do customs or more security, I’ll probably camp out by the gate most of the morning, but what I’m mostly excited about, is getting to use the dumb wireless internet again! Right now, I’m just listening to one of the cds Travis made me, and playing this kick ass zombie game on my phone, and a little bit of FreeCell in-between. I’m so looking forward to some actual sleep, and hula hooping, this is honestly the longest I have gone without it since I’ve started. Which I honestly needed the break, I over hooped and hurt my back, bruised my legs beyond repair and every time I moved it hurt, so it’s great I got some time to heal before I push my hooping practice to the max again, just have to remember to stretch first. I’m hoping there’s room somewhere for me to hoop every day. I also have sooo many songs, I need to get out of my head lol. So I have nine hours left, which once I get my ticket, will be fast, especially if I’ll spend a lot of time in customs/security. That will take up at least an hour, plus an hour for boarding, so I really only have 7 hours left before shit starts picking up.
12:AM YEEHAA, well that stupid self check in is closed until 6am, so looks like I won’t be getting my ticket and shit early. Just wandering around the airport, and it’s dead as fuck, I counted 11 people in the entire thing, including me and staff….. yupp…its so quiet. Hopefully my internet will work now that’s a new day, here’s hoping.