Greetings from Amsterdam

2^nd May

Yes! Greetings from Amsterdam.

My trip to Monze has not got off to the greatest start!

I had no problem getting to Heathrow Terminal 4 – in fact I arrived about 4 hours before my flight was due to leave.

I dropped off my bags as soon as allowed without problem. At security however I realised I had made a big mistake packing the projector in my backpack. I was told I needed to take out the projector which meant virtually unpacking my backpack.

Apparently I needed separate trays for laptops, projector and the remaining contents of the backpack - i.e. 3 trays. Needless to say I was by now pretty flustered. I then apparently walked through the scanner in the wrong way! My punishment was a full body scan. However, I had to do this again because I had things in my pockets – e.g. tissues! This was followed by a couple of physical body searches and finally having to put each foot on a wooden block for some unknown reason. By this time I was more than flustered and I wasn't sure what had happened to my luggage. I felt like I had found myself in a Mr. Bean sketch!! I tried to find my trays of luggage – by now I had taken my coat and jumper off, my belt and my shoes. Apparently I shouldn't have gone to find my luggage carrying the two new black trays which I acquired during the scanning process and the security guy was agitated because my 3 grey trays were holding up the system!! Eventually I poured 4 trays into one and tried unsuccessfully to repack. Admitting defeat I dressed myself and carried my worldly goods to a quiet area where I could regroup in peace. I decided that I wasn't prepared for a repeat in Amsterdam and Nairobi. So I am now carrying my projector separately.

Fortunately the Lord is good to me and I found myself in a very quiet area, where I had a great view of the planes landing and taking off – somewhere I hadn't realised existed – and somewhere that very few people seen to have found! I was able to calm down during the next couple of hours.

It was about ¾ hr before the flight that the gate number was given. On arriving at the gate I was told I was too early. I managed to get labels to allow me to keep my hand luggage with me – people were being persuaded to check their luggage in the hold because of shortage of storage space. I didn't fancy the chances of my laptop and tablet arriving safely if stored in the hold – not to mention the projector surviving being thrown around between planes.

There didn't seem to be a hurry to get people boarding. Eventually the preferential customers were allowed to board – these seemed to be about half of the travellers. Eventually the rest of us were allowed to move – but not far!! It was about 200 metres from the gate to the plane and we never moved more than 10 yards before stopping! It seems that all the preferential customers were seated at the front and hence blocked the passage for the rest of us. The stewardess was busy unsuccessfully loading luggage in the overhead lockers, but successfully blocking the aisle. So we we already 15 mins beyond departure time by the time everone was settled onboard. We then had an announcement that there would be a delay because of traffic control in Amsterdam.

We took off over an hour after the scheduled departure time – I had precisesly an hour between flights at Amsterdam! Needless to say by the time we arrived my plane to Nairobi had already left.

I was rescheduled on a flight to Kigali (Rwanda) tomorrow late morning. When I checked I was told I would arrive at Lusaka at 1.30 am. (I was then offered flights via Dubai or South Africa still arriving in Lusaka at the same time). After some discussion I persuaded the desk clerk to book me a flight on Kenya Airways to Nairobi tomorrow evening arriving in Lusaka at 9.30 on Saturday.

So now I am in a hotel in Amsterdam instead of being halfway to Nairobi!! I hope to have a pleasant day here – I am sure it will be better than a night at Lusaka Airport!!

Best wishes,

Chris