A last look at amsterdam, on my way to trhe tram-stop

Fortunately the snow was dry and crispy, not slushy and slippery, so I could go pretty fast.

Waiting for Tram 9 on newly renovated Rembrandt Square

It’s still a shock every time I see Rembrandt Square, I’m still not used to it looking like this. Tram 9 came straight away, so I thought everything would go smoothly. I hadn’t planned for the chaos at Amsterdam Central Station though. Some frozen link on some track somewhere apparently…the result was having to sprint madly from platform to platform. I finally found the train and wanted to take a pic before it left, but the whistle blew and the doors started closing, so I had to leap aboard, taking this wonderful photo while en route:

Platform 13 and the train to Schiphol

Standing room only in the train, I wasn’t the only person who was late and panicky. And the train CRAWLED. I managed to take a slightly better pic when we arrived at Schiphol, before sprinting to the Departure hall.

Arrival at Schiphol station

Checked the boards en route, yep, it’s there:

Departure board

And arrived, stressed and panting, at the check-in counters. Forty minutes late.

Clock in Departure hall 2

In the end it turned out not to be so serious. Not very busy at all, and lately you can check yourself in with those nifty little blue machines. I have only one small piece of luggage, so I didn’t have to check anything in. I decided not to take much in the way of clothing, I’ll buy new clothes in S.A. So basically I have my laptop and some toiletries.

Auto-checkin

So finally it was all good, I got to gate F03 with 15 minutes to spare before boarding. We took off an hour ago, and I’m sitting here in the sunshine, looking down at the clouds. We arrive at 11 PM local time, so there’s a long flight ahead. I’ll turn off my laptop now and watch some movies, and try to get this all online as soon as I get connected to the net in Johannesburg.

Above the clouds