Sex, bikes and a McDisgusting - a day in transit (posting from the road)

A 40 min early arrival into Amsterdam meant one thing to me...time to explore...

Some of you who read this have been mockers of my navigation skills in the past. I maintain that I earned my girl guide badge in orienteering and I possess an excellent intrinsic compass. This extended layover in Amsterdam gave Tricia and I a chance to zip into downtown Amsterdam for a quick tour of this unique canalled city. It has been 4 years since I have left Schipol airport on a layover but I navigated our way through the bridges and alleys of Amsterdam like a pro...our destination...the statue dedicated to sex workers.

I have always thought of it as an odd statue...sex workers in North America are generally viewed as 'part of the problem'. It would be the equivilant of placing a statue in the heart of Compton and dedicating it to all of the crack dealers; "may your gang colours run deep and your sales boom". But here where high end hotels are next to sex shops and it's possible to get high and caffinated at the same cafe, sex workers are celebrated in a small, somewhat dignified statue...in front of a church.

The other element of Amsterdam that I love is the bikes. Not that I want to hop on the devices and join them...I hate cycling. (I want to like it but I can't - it's too uncomfortable - but every few years I venture to REI - think maybe this is the year, wander around and wonder...). Everywhere you look in Amsterdam, there are bicycles...lining the canals, crowding the streets...they even have their own parking garage! But the most amazing thing about the bikes is the contraptions themselves. Several friends of mine are cyclists - and they have the titanium frames, padded seats and dual suspension - but their Dutch counterparts, who conduct EVERY aspect of their lives on a bike, have old steel frames with no suspension and regular seats - the kind of cycle that we have only seen in our grandparents garages. Hmmm...maybe that guy at REI was feeding me a line when he told me that I would need to have disk brakes to survive...

Time at the end of our whirlwind tour meant that we would have time to sample some Dutch McDonalds. A little background for those none regular readers, I try to visit McDonalds in all countries to see and sample the difference menus. This has lead to an interesting insight into local customs and cuisine and often a delicious snack. That all changed with the McKrocet. It was easily the WORST think I have ever sampled from the fast food giant. It can best be described as mashed potato with bits of beef, coated in breadcrumbs and deep fried. This patty is now served on a bun with a dijonase topping. It was truly horrid. The ddessert doughnut was a nice surprise however, even with the peculiar aftertaste...

Well my day started in one of the hippiest, granola crunching cities in the world (Portland, Oregon), took a brief detour through a city full of liberal progressions (Amsterdam, Netherlands) and ended with a decidedly dismal communist feel. As our 737 descended into St. Petersburg I envisioned seeing a skyline dotted with glittering gold onion domes and grand palaces...the approach is full of nothing but an endless view of communist style apartment blocks. There are five million people who live in St. Petersburg and I have flown into larger aiprorts in rural Canada! And talk about setting a tone...airports are the "gateways' to the country/area. Ambergris Caye in Belize had a huge reef aquarium, Great Falls Montana has a large number of taxidermied animals...and St. Petersburg has a drab paint scheme with a definate decor of communism. So we'll see...but I am here, safe and sound and out to tackle Russia - will write more soon!

Please write to me care of Minneapolis/St. Paul airport (posting from the road)

I arrived at the gate slightly breathless as was always the case when making the sprint from F28 to B13 in what has to be one of the world's most expansive airports. It takes numerous escalators, moving sidewalks, trams and pedal power to navigate your way through Minneapolis/St. Paul airport. I stood there stunned to see that the flight was actually on time...this was too good to be true - I was going to arrive back in my hometown on time - a first! If my luggage actually made it sometime this week it would be my most successful flight on this route ever.

Of course you know that's not what happened in the end. I missed all the earlier announcements so I was unaware of the fact that the flight was overweight. I just stood in line, clutching my boarding pass, oblivious to the drama around me. I snapped back to reality when I realized that the gate agent was repeating herself for the third time to the passenger ahead of me, "Ma'am, you are not on this flight". The passenger just stood there, blinking with a vacant look to her. While the socially inept gate agent continued to repeat herself, some other passengers and myself deduced, after reviewing her travel documents that this 82 year old lady was on her 21st hour of travel from Frankfurt Germany and spoke no English. The gate agent had no qualms about making this lady remain alone in Minneapolis MN overnight and try and catch a flight the next day.

Cursing my sense of right and wrong, I gave up me seat for this lady and elected to stay in Minneapolis overnight. A second gate agent had come to assist in the situation and was very thankful for my kindness so he rewarded me with a coupon for a hotel for the night at $20 worth of vouchers that I could spend for meals for the next 16 hours of my delay. I was trying to remain polite while simultaneously deciding where to spend all of my voucher money - $20 in an airport can get you either a burger OR a side of fries with a small pop...hmmm so many decisions, good thing I now had 16 hours to make them in. The original ruthless gate agent suggested that I use my vouchers for room service at the hotel. "Oh really I replied, do they have room service at the Days Inn?" was all I could mumble as I scooped up my papers and walked away.

Then nice thing about getting screwed by an airline, is that you can always find a comrade. This is how I met Dana and Carolyn - two hilarious sisters who were involuntarily bumped by Northwest. We decided to team up to try and navigate our way through the mammouth Minneapolis airport to try and locate the Days Inn Egan hotel shuttle. We made it 3 gates before Carolyn realized that she wasn't going to make it any further without the help of a luggage cart. I know what you are thinking...a luggage cart for carry on only? Yes, you see Carolyn was 'carrying on' 2 giant, Costco size, pumpkin pies and a cheesecake. We stopped briefly at baggage customer service to attempt to reclaim our luggage, of course not an option, but in lieu of our belongings we were given a "Care Pack" which is a transparent T-shirt and a flimsy toothbrush. Frustrated and tired we set off to hotel shuttles, which was still a good 25 min walk from our location. No elevator in site meant Carolyn had to improvise and she just pushed her trolley of pastries onto the escalator.

Do you know why you cannot take luggage trolleys onto the escalator? I now do. Turns out there is a little lip at the top that the trolley is prone to getting stuck on. Dana is making good time and is way ahead of us. I am behind Carolyn on the escalator, coffee in one hand and cell phone in the other. I am listening to a friend of mine, who is quite upset, discuss a tragedy in her life when I realize hear Carolyn frantically call out for help. The trolley is stuck. The next few seconds were a blur...Dana started to laugh uncontrollably, I started walking backwards down the escalator steps carefully trying to not spill my coffee and not change the concern in my voice for the sake of my upset friend and Carolyn tips the trolley over, gracelfully leaps it and somehow save the pies as they go careening across the floor.

We gave up on a shuttle and took a cab to the hotel in time to settle down in the common area and watch the fourth quarter of Monday Night Football and Bret Faurve and the Vikings trounced the Green Bay Packers. The game was being played just a short distance from where we now sat...surrounded by other stranded Northwest passengers.

Sleep was intermittent thanks to my scratchy sheets and hammocky mattress, so I was blearly eyed as I climbed into the shuttle but excited to get to go home. Dana, Carolyn, the pies and I made our way through security and with big plans to use up all of our food vouchers before boarding our final flight. "Airline Irregularities" was the excuse that we were given as to why the next flight was cancelled. WTF does that mean? "I don't know, I have never heard that before" was the blanket response from any Northwest/Delta employee that we asked who then shrugged and suggested, "You have time to visit the Mall of America if you want".

I don't want to go to the f$#@%ng mall - I WANT TO GO HOME!

So...after a delay in our departure, we are home; 25 hours later then expected, pies and all. No - no luggage. (October 2009)

Trapped at 42,000 feet with a psychotic Greek troll

I had a somewhat eventful flight over…I was just drifting off into a alcohol/exhaustion/drug induced slumber. My eyelids had almost fully drooped when my conscience became aware of the third, and now a more desperate tone in the overhead paging system looking for anyone on board with medical training. Assuming it would either be to hand someone a motion sickness bag or perform CPR, either activity promising not to take too long, I signaled via the call button that I was eager to assist in any way that I could.

I think that was mistake number 2, in this case I am going to count mistake number 1 as intentionally overdosing myself on sedatives. The flight crew pulled me aside, along with another lady who volunteered (she was a guidance counselor from Tacoma ???) and explained that we had a “situation” on board; specifically a "level one, close to a level two security risk". This sounded dire, we were apparently close to needing to make and emergency landing – considering we should be about to enter the Canadian Territory of Nunavut I thought this should be a decision that we make soon, say before we entered the Arctic Circle. Apparently a passenger was having some sort of psychiatric break with reality and tried to strangle a fellow passenger. I interrupted the flight attendant then and inquired as to what on earth it was they expected me, a simple ER nurse to do? It seems the solution that they came up with was to rearrange to the seating on the plane so I would be near the women and ready to intervene, maybe talk her down with my experience in dealing with mentally unbalance people.

Considering I was about 5 seconds away from a coma, I was unable to protest. We tried to stealthily make the seat changes so as to not alert the disturbed passenger as to our cunning plan. It was then that I got my first look at the passenger in question. The “almost level two” security risk that was about to bring down our A330 on Santa’s doorstep was a 4’8 Greek speaking women with dementia. What the hell was I supposed to do with this woman? She didn’t need a verbal intervention from an English speaking ER nurse. She needed to be sedated with some sort of tranquillizer dart, taken to a long term care facility and forced to wear oven mitts everyday to avoid hurting herself.

I spent the next 9 hours of my life peeking at her every 10 min or so (I had to set my watch alarm to keep waking up) and watching her bizarre behaviour. I did wake up at one point to find my ‘thank you’ present from Northwest Airlines – a gift certificate for the Amsterdam airport, enough to purchase a small soda! I was half dreaming and half on guard as I watched this Greek troll like creature talk and laugh to herself. I ensured the flight crew left her garbage at her seat because I had watched her place the contents of her wallet into an empty pretzel bag. I pondered it giving her a shot of ouzo would make this situation better or worse. All was going smoothly; we were on a final decent into Amsterdam, a fairly uneventful flight when she snapped. I have no ideal what set her off – one minute she was in her seat, next she was gone a small blur of crazy running down the aisle. As per our “plan”, I was dashed after her, grabbed her to attempt a “verbal intervention” to lure her back to her seat. Well, she would have none of that evidentially as she whirled around and slapped me across my face.

The rest of the landing was a blur, the women was restrained in a seat. We landed and I waited for security to come and haul this nasty little woman off to some sort of Dutch prison. No one came. The women just got up and walked away! I confronted a member of the Northwest Flight crew, I wanted to let them know that this hardened criminal who had just assaulted me was walking away! I was told that things were different now that we were in Europe and that I should just go about my business. Apparently assault is tolerated more openly on Dutch soil. The sad part of it all, as angry as I was the women needed help – I was fairly certain that Amsterdam wasn’t her final destination. I deduced this while watching her try to determine the location of the next flight based on a dry cleaning stub in her hand. (April 2009)