Arrivals

I did it! It was somewhat terrifying, aggravating, thrilling etc, but my journey across 9 time zones has concluded sans injury. I am here, sitting on the couch in the Robinson's apartment in The Hague, on my best friend's computer typing away about my journey while the oven heats up. Once it's warm I can put the Dutch version of Bagel Bites (they come in Hawaiian!) in, and then I can have foods. I haven't eaten since late dinner on the plane. It's been a bit hectic okay?


Anyway, either you all read my tweets or it will be long boring tale. I will give you the highlights from before I arrived in Holland, before I left San Francisco even. 


I arrived at SFO plenty early this morning, checked in, went through security and even had breakfast before boarding the plane to Philadelphia. Everything went to plan until we were out of the gate and the captain checked his weather map. At which point, everything fell apart, not because of the weather, but because of the map. The weather radar on the plane was apparently broken. So, we sat on the plane hoping they'd fix it. They took too long, so they pulled everyone off the plane and sent the international passengers down to purgatory in the bag claim area while one person worked on all 50 of our transfers to different flights and/or carriers. You can imagine that did not go well. Somewhere along the line, I and another woman travelling alone to Amsterdam, heard about two seats on a Delta flight. So we went upstairs and managed to get ahold of...one. We ro sham bo'd for it. I won. I am here now, instead of tomorrow. Yes. My travel plans hinged on whether I picked scissors or rock. I picked scissors, it all worked out. 


My flights themselves were fairly uneventful, except for my lovely position in children-to-young-to-ride-planes central on the flight to Amsterdam. I didn't sleep as much as I'd have liked to, but at this point I think I'll be okay until this evening. It helps to have only half the day instead of the originally planned whole day. 


Upon arrival, I walked right up to the immigration counter, the guy took my passport and stamped it with hardly a glance. I knew instantaneously that I was in fact, not in Kansas anymore. Customs was merely a gate that said "No items to declare." There wasn't even a person there! Either the Netherlands is super laid back about stuff that comes in, or the US is a total stickler (probably both of those things actually.) 


Anyway, it was at about this time that I had a scare of sorts. I went to the ATM that was on the back side of the exchange booth inside the baggage claim area. I would've gone to the front if there were a person, but no one was working. So I went to the ATM and tried to withdraw 450 Euro. It looked like it worked, and it spat my card back out, but it didn't give me any money. Naturally I was confused and distressed. That was most of my funds for the trip and if the stupid airport ATM had eaten them I was going to be very very sad. I knew that that wasnt all of my funds however, and I needed 20 Euro to get to the Hague (it was actually about 10, at the end of the day) so I bravely tried again and it behaved perfectly, giving me 20 Euro and a confirmation screen. Okay, I thought, I didn't get the confirmation screen last time, maybe it hasn't gone through and it was just too much. So I tried the top listed amount, 250 Euro. It said "you don't have enough money for that," which gave me a minor panic, since I knew that even with the 450 Euro evaporated I should still have 250 Euro. So I tried 100. Again, it behaved like a little sheep and did exactly as it was told. I came out with a 20 Euro and 2 50 Euro bills, and a worry that my money had been taken away. I took a photo with my phone of the "problems?" placard, just in case. 


The next dilemma was tickets for the train to the Hague. I first stood in line for a while at one of the yellow ticket stands, but soon realized that none of them take cash. It took me a couple minutes, but I eventually located the well labeled train ticket booth where a nice lady gave me a ticket for 7,90 (they use commas for Euro cents, instead of periods) and told me that I needed to go to platforms 5 and 6 (which is something I already knew, thanks to Jenni) and that the train left in 5 minutes. I dashed off to the platform, and discovered, happily, that not only are such trains bright yellow, they're double decker! I rode on the bottom level since I had my luggage, but next time... :D


The train ride was fairly uneventful and mostly filled with me reviewing Jenni's directions for once I got to the Hague and fretting over the confusing ATM. Once I arrived, I found my way to the tram stop, awkwardly made my way onto the tram with much too much stuff, and rode the tram to the proper spot. It took me a little bit of wandering and guessing, but I found my way to the apartment and got settled in.


Then I became hungry, and since I am forbidden from sleeping, I decided to go investigate the grocery Jenni had told me about. The apartment is situated on the coast in Scheveningen, which is very touristy area. There is a boardwalk, populated by half a dozen gimmicky looking restaurants and a promenade filled with clothing shops. I walked through all this, observing that while most Dutch people speak English, they normally speak Dutch and throw in the occasional English phrase. Restaurants and sign-makers operate like this too. It's rather odd. Anyway, I walked past all that and the somewhat tempting Dutch Burger King and located "Deli - Food Shopping" where I purchased, for just under 6 Euro a bag of baby carrots, the aforementioned Dutch Bagel Bites, and a bag of Croky Superfrites because the bag amused me. 

I also discovered that eggs are really expensive here? Maybe I was looking at it wrong but it looked like a box of 4 was 11 Euro! That seems very...incorrect.
On the way back, I walked by the famous Kurhaus hotel. I will take better pictures later with the good camera, but as I was just on a food excursion all I had was my phone and a lame angle.

That's all for now, sorry for the VERY LONG post. They should be shorter in the future. 


Nap time!