From Amsterdam to Paris...

I did warn earlier that my journey home would be an adventure. Well it all started after I missed that flight out of Brussels...

The flight was supposed to leave at 1850pm however the dark skies should have signaled something to me. A long chain of cars blocked the Citroen taxi from getting into the highway that leads to the Brussels International Airport. The taxi driver was expert enough in maneuvering his machine around the trucks and cars but the stop-and-go motion of the ride was seriously making me nauseous. I had considered asking him to slow down and that we have plenty of time, but the fact that he arrived late and was insanely in a hurry to get somewhere else - I decided to let the man do his job.

We arrived in one piece, or rather I managed to hold down my cookies until we reached the airport. Check in was simple enough, they had managed to check me in all the way through provided I make the connection in Amsterdam. Earlier that day, with some help I had already forseen this to be a problem and had tried very hard to make an earlier flight that should give some time for weather delays, but all flights were full. So here I am stuck on the 1850pm flight waiting at the gate - hoping that the delay is not too long for me to catch the other leg to KL. I only have 1 hour. Not enough by any standard.

I checked my watch, its now 1915pm, and there was this tiny propeller type plane, a Fokker 50 from what I can tell at the gate. It's so tiny the boarding ramps can't connect to it obviously, so we probably have to climb down and climb through a window or something and start paddling for all I know. The crowd was getting really anxious, more than half the plane was on transit in Schiphol Airport and everyone was missing their connections.

I asked a French dude what was happening and he related about the weather delays, them sending in a smaller plane due to the original one was delayed. We finally boarded at around 1945 and my carry-on was too big for the plane and was chucked in with the luggage. I was seated at 14F - the single aisle of the plane separated two rows of seats on either side. I walked down all the way to the back and found my chair with some guy in it. It was the last seat on the plane, right in the corner.

A few more people got on, apparently there are some people with tickets to row 15. Row 15? The plane only had 14 bloody rows! A guy showed up with a ticket for 12B, there was no 12B, just row A and C, where the hell was he going to sit? I finally took a neighbour, an Italian girl heading to Venice, she had 15D. Much confusion - laughing and threats to sit in with the luggage - later we finally got an apology from the pilot (whom we can see having drinks and pretzels in the cockpit). The around 2000hrs we took off on a very bumpy ride.

Needless to say I missed my connection. We landed at about 10 minutes to 2100hrs but the bus ride to the terminal took forever. Three scotsmen were calling the terminal about the flights shouting out the results.

"So where yer goin? Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur?"

"Kuala Lumpur!", he shouts into the phone.

"Boarding, next . Cork? Cork?"

"Boarding, who else? Anyone going to Singapore? On time 2130."

"Anyone else? Venice? Rescheduled for 2200."

The the Frenchman asked for Bordeaux, when was it leaving?

"Bordeaux? Nah we don't care about that, it's French!"

Funny people. Finally, most people made their connections, because they were also delayed. My flight was on time for once and of course I missed it. The Italian girl also missed her flight back home but was among friends. It took me 45 minutes to get the connection back to KL out of Paris at noon the next day. I had to spend the night somewhere and then take the early flight tomorrow to Paris... ah Paris...