Getting to Amsterdam

We've previously been to Amsterdam twice, and I have yet to blog about it! Amsterdam was our first ever international (Canada doesn't count as international) trip together and as non-revs. It's a beautiful city that allows for endless walking and always seeing something new.

Tuesday morning (December 18, 2018) I got up at 6am and finished packing my bags and studied a bit before taking my last exam of year 3 term 1. The exam was Project Management. I was quite nervous for it but knew it wasn't going to be too hard because it's just project management. I got permission to start the exam at 9am rather than 1pm so I could make the 3:30pm flight out however I had to stay till 1:30 because my university has a 30 minutes rule (you cannot leave a final exam until 30 minutes after the start time). So at 8:30 I headed to my exam with my bags in tow and started at 9am. I guess I was very prepared for the exam because I was done it in 2.5 hours! I then had to sit and wait another 2 hours till I could leave which was boring but I was so excited to be able to leave early!

Once I was done, I headed to YLW to catch the SEA flight. The flight is an hour long and went smooth. Before departure, I bought a foot long from subway, saving half of it for dinner in Seattle, however, I told the customs agent I had food and then, unfortunately, had the rest of my sandwich confiscated! Peppers and tomatoes are not allowed to cross the border, which my sandwich had. I was quite sad to have to waste it. Once I was through security again, I decided to buy burger king because they have unrestricted soda machines! BK onion rings are the best! After I ate, I started looking at flights and talking with Hunter about the best course of action for getting to Amsterdam. Many of the flights we initially wanted to take had filled up, so I was now trying to get to the east coast for one of those flights. It was finally decided that our best option was to go to JFK, so I took AS18. I love taking Alaska when I can because they have the best $6 snack box - the NorthWest Deli box.

A perfect sunset for my winter break departure from Kelowna

Somewhere over British Columbia

A brightly lit city on my way to JFK

I landed in JFK at about 6am, and continued to check loads while I waited for Hunter to wake up. JFK was getting to be full and a little sketchy, so I headed off to DTW as there were flights to London and Amsterdam with space. When I was trying to get to terminal 2 in JFK, I had to go to a train station and the trains were only working on one track! This was my second time in JFK and I was confused and felt lost, but thankfully I was able to get my phone working and text Hunter for directions because he knows JFK better than I do. It was a good thing I asked him where to go because if not I would have missed my flight by ending up in the wrong terminal!

The flight to DTW was 2 hours and I slept most of it because I didn't get much sleep the night before. Once I got there, I headed to the Westin to use their $15 day pass to shower because I felt pretty gross after a solid 24 hours in the same clothes. Hunter told me about the deal because a lot of their crew members like to use it. It was so nice being able to shower and feel revived. The Westin is attached to the A terminal and even has its own security line when you want to go back to the gates. Hunter arrived at 2:30 and we decided to have lunch at Longhorn Steakhouse because on our first trip to Amsterdam, we ate there and had an awesome soup and sandwich deal. Unfortunately, they didn't have the same deal, but we made it work by each getting soup and sharing a sandwich.

A quick clip from the Westin lobby

Finally got to eat!

We then waited for the flights to begin departing (I napped a little while waiting). Our plan was to watch two flights, one to Amsterdam with 40 economy seats and one to London with 2 delta one seats and 9 in the back. Ideally we wanted the delta one seats and it looked like we were going to get them, but as departure time came closer, people who missed previous flights were rebooked and then some more senior people listed ahead of us and two pilots took the delta one seats, so off to Amsterdam in economy with 40 seats we went!

We sat in 20 C and D (middle row) for the ≈7.5 hour flight. For dinner on the plane I had chicken and Hunter had pasta. Both were yummy and I ate mine up so fast as I was hungry that I only realized half way through I didn't take any photos! After food, we got comfy and slept, well tried to. There was a child a few rows behind us that insisted on this high pitch terrible moan. I was able to get more sleep than Hunter, but only about 4 hours.

We landed at 9:50 am December 20th to an overcast day. It was nice to be back on the ground. Our first day in Amsterdam officially begun!

Date: December 18-19, 2018