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The Hague, Day 10: The Journey Home
Oct. 2nd, 2022 10:54 pmHour 0 (5am hour, CET). At 5am, I'm standing on the platform at The Hague HS station. It's dark out. I'd originally thought with a 10.30 flight that I could roll out of The Student Hotel at 7 or 7.30 and get to Schiphol by 8, plenty of time for a 10.30 flight. But all reports are that the airport is a trainwreck. So 5am it is, because the 5.22 train is the only one that gets me to Schiphol with a window of more than 4 hours, as they only run once an hour until 6am. But, that's certainly better than BART, where a sufficiently early takeoff time meant you _had_ to take an Uber.
On the train, it's more crowded than I expected. Still seats at The Hague HS, but the train is maybe 60%-70% full. At 5am! On a Sunday!
There's a constant array of coughing and sniffling as I sit and write. I won't miss the sniffling, which seemed endemic in Holland.
I'd wondered why the trip to the airport was scheduled to take 45 minutes, and it's apparently because we sit at Leiden, our only stop, for close to 10 minutes. More passengers get on here, and there's a bit of brownian motion as they randomly bounce from car to car, looking for a seat. Eventually the atoms balance out, because there really is enough room in all the cars, even when selfish people like moi taking up an extra seat for our luggage (but there's no where else to put it, unless I chose to stand up by the doors for the entire 45 minutes).
--
Hour 1 (6am hour, CET). At 6am, I'm walking up from the train station under Schiphol, looking for Departures 2, Desks 9-15, which the Schiphol app has told me is where I should be. I finally find what looks like the right set of labyrinthine lines, and when I tell the attendant at the front the secret word of "Seattle", she bids me enter.
I'm here illegally early, because Schiphol says one may not enter the Departures hall more than 4 hours before your flight because they've made such a mess of their airport that people are showing up 8 hours or more before their flight. I'm also here pointlessly early because the check-in desk doesn't open until 6.30.
Or so I thought.
There's already one or two hundred people in front of me, but they're moving. We snake through the hall relatively fast. I'd been somewhat concerned because the Delta app was entirely broken, unable to give me a valid boarding pass or to accept that I'm bringing luggage because they claim it's actually a KLM flight (something they'd never previously acknowledged and something that might have deterred me from this particular flight because my memory of KLM on previous trips to Europe is mainly that they have uncomfortable seats). But here all the many, many check-in and luggage desks rotate their marquees between KLM, Delta, Airfrance, and Vrigin. Clearly, no problem. The Delta app just sucks.
Around 6.15, I come to a decision point: the shorter, slower "Check In" line or the longer, faster "Baggage Check" line. Because of my inability to generate a valid boarding pass from the Delta app, I decide that "Check In" is the right answer. I'm up to the desk by 6.30 and I'm efficiently given my boarding passes and my luggage is sent off. And the clerk tells me that I have "Sky Priority" coverage, presumably because of my Comfort+ seat (which was really a pretty minor cost increase) and I could have used the SkyPriority red-marked desks. Which I suppose would have saved me some time, but no biggie. And she tells me I can use the "Sky Priority" security stairway which is really much faster. She emphasizes this.
I hate-hate-hate this ability to pay for speed in a foundational human-rights situation such as transportation, but I'm hypocritical enough that I'm going to take advantage of it because the reports of the security lines at Schiphol have been stressing me out for days. I walk back quite a ways, spot the red "Sky Priority" desks, and then go up the secret Sky Priority stairway.
Seriously? After days of horror stories about Schiphol and security lines taking up to an hour yesterday, which was expected to be less busy than today, I'm through security in about 5 minutes. People have been posting their wait-times to our RWOT11 Signal group, and I decide it's best not to. *cough*.
Passport Control is more confusing mainly because it's automated. And confusingly they both say that American passports can be used at the automated machines and that only e-passport-enabled passports can be used. Do they really mean that all American passports are e-passports? I shrug and decide to give it a shot, because I know I'm also registered for my Global Priority card, which definitely has that e-passport symbol. But, I almost turn tail and flee back to manual passport control when I see that you enter a little stall to enter your e-passport and then a gate CLOSES BEHIND YOU. I envision being stuck there forever if I don't have the right e-passport credentials. My passport and my face-scan work fine (sans mask, of course, but at least you're not elbow to elbow with other people, as was the case when they required a face-scan to board at SFO). I'm excited that I'm going to get to stamp my own passport, but then I'm waved forward to a woman whose sole job is to stamp the passport.
Darn it.
And then it's just a long walk to my gate. As I pass by the Rijks Museum at Schiphol I suddenly remember seeing it before, when I passed back and forth through Schiphol on my way to Prague in 2019. From there everything looks familiar.
--
Hour 2 (7am hour, CET). My gate is mostly empty. I have to guess everyone else is still struggling through security. There are maybe a dozen people in a _very large_ gate area. Unfortunately one of them is a loud, nasal American speaking _very_ loudly into his phone. He's talking about his family, which he clearly hates, and how he'd like to take them outside and beat the s*** out of them because he expects more from family. Apparently that expectation includes physical violence. The whole gate is hearing every word of his melodrama. No wonder everyone hates Americans.
-
7.30AM, CET. Loud American is still talking. He's amazed that musicians can write music that speaks to him personally even though they've never met him.
I watch the sun come up. It still won't have set when I land in Kauai (hopefully) 24 hours from now. Weird.
As the sun rise, lighting the airfield, I see that our plane, where Delta couldn't deal with seats or luggage because it was KLM's flight, is clearly labeled Delta. Hopefully that means the seats aren't as bad as KLM's.
I go in search of somewhere to refill my water bottle.
--
Hour 3 (8am hour, CET). Back with water (painstakingly scooped up from a water fountain using my water bottle cap, one capful at a time), plus a cold bacon and egg sandwich. (I was excited to see a Starbuck's, but then they had no bagels. Blasphemy! So bacon and egg it was.) It's likely to be the first of 6 or 7 meals today. I'll have to make sure to leave room for the Taco Bell at the end.
Loud American is talking about when he was _technically_ still married. He emphasizes that word.
--
Hour 4 (9am hour, CET). They push a cart around the gate area to scan everyone's passport info and correlate it with the boarding passes. Seriously? This is so strangely alien that I worry for a second that it's an identity-theft scam. But everyone is handing their passports over to woman-with-a-cart.
Still, I don't see how this could possibly be efficient and how just a few cart-people randomly iterating around the gate area could catch everyone. Maybe they're just trying to catch as many people as they can who haven't previously had their passports scanned by Delta or KLM, whomever this is.
Loud American has finally shut up, though he was growing increasingly indistinct as the gate area filled up, creating a hubbub of humanity.
-
9.30AM, CET. We begin boarding and it's a chaotic mess. The problem is that KLM or Delta, whoever it is, classifies its customers by a bunch of different names. I'm Sky Priority or Comfort+, for example. But then they board by zone numbers which aren't printed on the actual boarding passes! My zone turns out to be 4, but the ticket just says COMF. You can figure out what they're _actually_ boarding by reading a little iPad screen being held up by one of the staff members. So everyone has to push forward and jam up the boarding area to do so.
--
Hour 5 (10am hour, CET). I'm on board in the 4-in-a-row middle just behind the fake bulkhead protecting business-class. Sadly next to the aisle, which is a prime disease vector, but it was what I had available in the good seats. Also sadly without the under-seat space that Hawaiian offered in its fake-bulkhead seat. Across from me are a couple that I joked with out at the gate and seemed nice enough. (My measure later notches up a level when she pulls out _A Clash of Kings_ to read.)
We're carefully watching the seat between us, which is empty. It looks like the flight is mostly boarded, but then the pilot announces that there are 15 minutes of boarding left! We're as tense as cats in a room full of rockers.
Finally, the pilot announces they're closing the doors. We celebrate by piling pillows up on the extra seat.
--
Hour 6 (11am hour, CET). Meal #2. It's theoretically pesto chicken, but no pesto is detected. Instead it seems to be in some Ratatouille sauce. The chicken is quite good. Moist, with a bit of flavor. There are also some good cold vegetables.
For the drink service, Game-of-Thrones-woman asks for two white wines. The steward laughs. And she says, "No, I'm serious, I'd like two white wines because it'll be a while before you're back." He nods and passes the word on to the booze gal, who serves the liquor.
The booze gal shows up a few minutes later and laughs and says, "What would you like?" Game-of-Thromes-woman repeats that she'd like two white wines. Booze gal laughs even harder and says, "He told me that and I was sure it was a joke." Games-of-Thrones-woman assures her it is not, and she gets her two white wines. Booze gal also tells her that they'll be around with more drinks right after they finish the dinner service (and they are, even before they clear our meals).
During dinner, the masked couple across from me notes that one of their video screens won't come up. The flight attendant offers to let the unvideo-ed member of the couple, mask-woman, swap to the beloved empty seat between myself and Game-of-Thrones-woman, now filled with not just pillows but also one _Clash of Kings_, one MacBook, and one Galaxy Tab. I hold my breath for a moment, but mask-man says, "No, that's OK." Whew, they're probably preserving their health by staying off in their little two seats away from anyway else and don't want to make the jump to the four-seat-middle. Smart. But Game-of-Thrones-woman doesn't know how near we came to disaster.
--
Hour 7 (noon, CET). After being held hostage by the remnants of my meal for an hour, I'm finally freed up around noon. Which means I can get back to work. My most immediate goal is preparing my Designers & Dragons Patreon material for release tomorrow. (The goal of the Patreon isn't to fund the work, but rather to help ensure that it occurs, hence the monthly releases.)
So I'm back to editing "Grim & Perilous Studios", which I'd just barely started before the meal.
-
12.15pm, CET. At a quarter after noon they announce that people should lower the window shades so that others can sleep. It feels even more ridiculous than the early evening blackout on our way out, because it's just barely afternoon. But somehow, a few people are already starting to sleep.
I'm pretty sure I won't on this flight, which should land around 7.30pm Amsterdam time. The next one is anyone's question, but if I'm able to stay awake, that'll aid my transition back to HST. (Hoping to be able to: nap no more than an hour on the plane + take melatonin is usually a great formula for me, and worked once more on my trip out, other than my getting sleepy in the early evenings.)
--
Hour 8 (1pm, CET). The downside of having a center seat up against a fake bulkhead is that some jerks treat it like it's an aisle. It's just been a couple of overprivileged Americans so far, but c'mon folks. Hello, this is our row of seats on an _airplane_. Were you raised in a barn (with a bulkhead)?
To my left, mask-man has fallen asleep with his video screen paused on _Before Sunrise_, with the two main characters still blissfully wrapped in each others' arms, just a few minutes before the credits. Don't hit the play button, mask-man! Let them stay in the second of togetherness before sunrise forever.
--
Hour 9 (2pm, CET). There's a child sobbing and sobbing in First Class. I'm surprised Karen hasn't complained. Meanwhile, the rest of the plane is blissfully protected from the faraway distress.
I've put maybe an hour and a half into editing this month's Designers & Dragons work. Grim & Perilous Studios has comments incorporated from one of the principals, plus a full edit, and I've also written a commentary on it. Meanwhile, I'm about a quarter of a way into an edit on the chapter of the TSR Codex about the BECMI Companion Rules and adventures. When that's done, that'll be the end of the stuff I have to have ready for posting tomorrow.
I nap for about half an hour, constantly interrupted by my head tipping over.
I wake up to see mask-man watching the end of the Before Sunrise. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy head off in trains for different destination. His wife, mask-woman, was the one with the broken video arm, so he now trades seats with her so that she can watch it too. Awwwwww.
--
Hour 10 (3pm, CET). The long dark night of the plane continues. (Not actually night.)
After some time spent reading the various things I've collected on my Galaxy for the trip, and of course that little nap, it's back to work finishing up my edit of the D&D Companion series histories.
But no sooner do I set back to work than the attendants are back handing out packaged stroopwaffles. It's tasty, but almost nothing like the fresh one I had yesterday. I've always been amused by the constant flow of drinks and food on longer flights as a tool to keep the inmates from rioting.
--
Hour 11 (4pm, CET). It took me hours, but I've finally finished my edit of the 14,000 word Companion Rules section for the third TSR Codex. Plane hours aren't real hours.
On the screen next to me, Julie and Ethan are once more heading their separate ways.
--
Hour 12 (5pm, CET). Still pseudo-dark in the plane. Which surprises me, because it's 8am at our destination. I'd think they'd be bringing us into morning soon.
Not that there's been much sleeping by anyone that I've seen. With a few exceptions it's just been an excuse to watch movies with high contrast.
I'd swear Men in Black has been going on for hours in front of me. Next to me, more people are kissing goodbye.
--
Hour 13 (6pm, CET). 6pm and all's well? We have definitely entered the long limbo of trips from Europe to the West Coast. I'm now working on another Designers & Dragons project: adding recent material to my "Chromatic Appendix", which collects together material from my online column at RPGnet. It's fortunately mainly methodical formatting of texts and pictures because my eyes are starting to glaze from the long time in a pressurized cabin, sitting motionless in a chair.
At 6.45, the lights finally sputter back up with a bright surge of orange. The coloring was doubtless meant to allow for a more gradual (and natural) awakening, but the quick surge up likely foiled that.
--
Hour 14 (7pm, CET). For the first time on the trip, the attendants draw the (mesh) curtains on first class, I expect to hide the serving of a tasty breakfast. They actually haven't been doing a good job of keeping the animals from rioting in the rest of the plane, with just that (distant) lunch and a mini-stroopwaffle for our troubles so far.
A while later, business and comfort+ is served. I got a soggy spring roll that's too spicy.
--
Hour 15 (8pm, CET). We are finally descending into Seattle, my layover!
We land about half past the hour, then have to wait until a plane clears our gate. Apparently Seattle should have a rule about not arriving early, like Schiphol does.
--
Hour 16 (noon, PDT).
My first experience of Seattle Airport is that none of their Global Entry machines work. I shrug my shoulders and wander down to collect my baggage. I have plenty of time.
After getting said luggage, Passport Control is pretty quick, but the officer I get is one of the aggressive jerks who was probably denied entrance to the police for that reason. He seems sure that he's going to catch people in a lie as he presses hard and almost angrily at people like me who've been in transit for at least half a day.
What was I doing? Was it work? What was my conference about? What did I do?
Seems to me like a lot of that is none of his f***ing business since I'm a US citizen. But like everyone else I meekly (and groggily) answer the questions until he lets me reenter my country.
I'm very pleased to see that the place where I redrop my luggage is also labeled Delta so that I have some faith that my luggage will make it to Hawaii. (Spoiler: it does.)
When I get out past the TSA booth on the other side of Passport Control I unfortunately can't find my flight listed. And I'm a little concerned that there's a Maui flight by Delta right when my Lihue flight should be. I look up my flight in the Delta app, which thankfully works this time, and it directs me to a gate which turns out to be right. I discover the problem when I get to the gate: the flight's destination is not listed as "Lihue", but "Kauai — Lihue". Thanks, Delta.
As I walk Seattle, I'm amazed how much less pleasant it is than Schiphol. Well, then the backside of Schiphol, as the insane frontend which I mostly avoided was clearly horrible.
But it's so much more crowded and everyone's all jammed into so much less space. I was really surprised how spread out the gate in Schiphol was. Here, that'd be at least two gates' space, maybe a little bit more.
Now I wait, as my flight doesn't board until a little bit after 3pm. (I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time for Customs and Passport Control, even with my Global Entry (ha!). So the four hour layover was no great sacrifice, though I would have been happy with 3. In all, it was about one hour gate to gate, maybe a little less.
Also, there's a TV blaring here, but no one's listening. That's America in a nutshell.
--
Hour 17 (1pm, PDT)
I didn't bother with internet while I was on the flight this time, as I found I made very little serious use of it on the flight out.
So since landing (at Seattle and at my gate) I've been chatting with Kimberly and with Chris. Nice to be back in touch with the world.
And now I'm thinking about getting a quick snack at the darn McDonalds right at our gate.
I don't want to spoil Taco bell in ... 9 hours ... but I also don't have to eat whatever mediocre food Delta serves on the next flight.
--
Hour 18 (2pm, PDT)
I wander the terminal for a while to stretch my legs after 10+ hours cramped in an airplane. Returning to my gate that previously read "Kauai — Lihue", I see it now reads "Detroit".
Yeah, don't want to go to Detroit.
Returning to the departures board I now know to look for Kauai and discover our departure gate has moved a quarter mile down the way.
More leg stretching.
--
Hour 19 (3pm, PDT)
Boarding for the next flight starts just after 3. It's much more organized than the Amsterdam boarding most of a day ago primarily because they actually use the right names for all the classes.
The first thing I notice when I board is that there are no bulkheads in the plane: I can see all the way to the back and the front.
The second thing I notice is the woman in the seat next to mine. She asks if her husband can swap seats with me so that they can sit together. I have a window seat; he has a window seat. No problem. Of course the young couple can sit together on their vacation to Hawaii.
The whole Comfort+ section is just two and a half rows and a lavatory right in front of the plane's main entrance, so it's not even a big change: from the right side of the plane to the left and back a row to just in front of the door.
--
Hour 20 (4pm, PDT)
No good deed goes unpunished.
This is one of the worst seats I've ever sat in in a plane.
Oh, I have leg room, though it's not as good as the bulkhead seats I had on my other long flights (let alone the business-class seat on the trip out to Amsterdam).
But the seat is deafening. I hope not literally so.
There's a loud metallic grinding sound the whole time we're taking off and that finally lets off after ten minutes or so but then there's the constant buffeting of the wind against the door. I'm used to planes being pretty quiet, and this is anything but.
It's as if there was a reason that bulkheads exist in the cabin.
Delta accommodates the loud noise in the cabin by blasting their announcements.
I feel like I'm riding on some super cut-rate airline who is cutting every corner they can. DELTA.
(If I'd kept my original seat I suspect I would have been a fair amount more sheltered from this sound.)
--
Hour 21 (5pm, PDT)
Somewhat used to the dull roar of the door. Not being able to hear most of the people in the plane has its advantages.
Still, it's like being on a BART train for 6 hours.
The turbulence starts hitting a bit after 5 and the captain turns on the Seatbelts light.
--
Hour 22 (6pm, PDT)
I've decided I can't work any more, which is a pity because I was close to finishing up that Chromatic Appendix for Designers & Dragons and some editing for Chris.
But I guess I've been up for 22 hours, minus that very brief nap.
I'm having troubles figuring out the hours any more, but I guess it must be 3am in Amsterdam. Wow, later than I realized.
--
Hour 23 (7pm, PDT)
For an hour or more now there have been people constantly hovering behind our seats. That's because we're across the aisle from the bathroom. Surely not the only bathroom on the flight. There must be one or two way in the back. But there are obviously too few based on the constant queueing.
More Delta cost cutting. A pity, I thought they were fine on that international trip, but for this Hawaii trip I feel like I'm flying Spirit.
At least they're not charging for the lavatory.
On the other hand, the only food has been some snacks and a scam cart (of paid sandwiches). I guess I've gotten "spoiled" on Hawaiian and international flights. Other airlines apparently don't realize that a six-hour flight is long. Good thing I had that McDonalds in Seattle, even if the grease did turn my stomach a bit at the time.
--
Hour 24 (8pm, PDT)
Yeah, this one long plane trip after another is pretty tough. Feel very out of sorts, but then I've been awake for more than 24 hours at this point. Will have to think about best options for next time I'm out on the other side of the Atlantic.
At 8.15 I slide into another nap but am woken almost immediately by Delta bothering us about the Hawaii agriculture forms.
My seatmates mightily struggle with the trick question of where you're staying in Hawaii, which I remember being equally befuddled by on our first few stays here. It's just the type of thing that's often not in your carryon (or nowadays, dependent on having a cell signal to look it up on the internet).
Well, at least that all distracts me for 10 or 15 minutes and soon we've just got an hour left(!!).
--
Hour 25 (9pm, PDT)
I finally get Steam to run despite not having an internet connection and am able to play some games to wile away the last hour.
--
Hour 26 (7pm, HST)
We land! (The sun is actually setting just as we land.) My dad has to fight through a mob of cars like I've never seen before at the Lihue airport to pick me up, but once he succeeds it's open roads all the way home, yes with a pickup at Taco bell.
--
Hour 27 (8pm)
And finally, about 28 hours after waking up, I make it home. Whew!
The orangies are quite skittish, but I suppose they've never had someone disappear and come back two weeks later.
Be ready, kids, we're planning to both head out for a week next month! (But we won't be 28 hours away)
On the train, it's more crowded than I expected. Still seats at The Hague HS, but the train is maybe 60%-70% full. At 5am! On a Sunday!
There's a constant array of coughing and sniffling as I sit and write. I won't miss the sniffling, which seemed endemic in Holland.
I'd wondered why the trip to the airport was scheduled to take 45 minutes, and it's apparently because we sit at Leiden, our only stop, for close to 10 minutes. More passengers get on here, and there's a bit of brownian motion as they randomly bounce from car to car, looking for a seat. Eventually the atoms balance out, because there really is enough room in all the cars, even when selfish people like moi taking up an extra seat for our luggage (but there's no where else to put it, unless I chose to stand up by the doors for the entire 45 minutes).
--
Hour 1 (6am hour, CET). At 6am, I'm walking up from the train station under Schiphol, looking for Departures 2, Desks 9-15, which the Schiphol app has told me is where I should be. I finally find what looks like the right set of labyrinthine lines, and when I tell the attendant at the front the secret word of "Seattle", she bids me enter.
I'm here illegally early, because Schiphol says one may not enter the Departures hall more than 4 hours before your flight because they've made such a mess of their airport that people are showing up 8 hours or more before their flight. I'm also here pointlessly early because the check-in desk doesn't open until 6.30.
Or so I thought.
There's already one or two hundred people in front of me, but they're moving. We snake through the hall relatively fast. I'd been somewhat concerned because the Delta app was entirely broken, unable to give me a valid boarding pass or to accept that I'm bringing luggage because they claim it's actually a KLM flight (something they'd never previously acknowledged and something that might have deterred me from this particular flight because my memory of KLM on previous trips to Europe is mainly that they have uncomfortable seats). But here all the many, many check-in and luggage desks rotate their marquees between KLM, Delta, Airfrance, and Vrigin. Clearly, no problem. The Delta app just sucks.
Around 6.15, I come to a decision point: the shorter, slower "Check In" line or the longer, faster "Baggage Check" line. Because of my inability to generate a valid boarding pass from the Delta app, I decide that "Check In" is the right answer. I'm up to the desk by 6.30 and I'm efficiently given my boarding passes and my luggage is sent off. And the clerk tells me that I have "Sky Priority" coverage, presumably because of my Comfort+ seat (which was really a pretty minor cost increase) and I could have used the SkyPriority red-marked desks. Which I suppose would have saved me some time, but no biggie. And she tells me I can use the "Sky Priority" security stairway which is really much faster. She emphasizes this.
I hate-hate-hate this ability to pay for speed in a foundational human-rights situation such as transportation, but I'm hypocritical enough that I'm going to take advantage of it because the reports of the security lines at Schiphol have been stressing me out for days. I walk back quite a ways, spot the red "Sky Priority" desks, and then go up the secret Sky Priority stairway.
Seriously? After days of horror stories about Schiphol and security lines taking up to an hour yesterday, which was expected to be less busy than today, I'm through security in about 5 minutes. People have been posting their wait-times to our RWOT11 Signal group, and I decide it's best not to. *cough*.
Passport Control is more confusing mainly because it's automated. And confusingly they both say that American passports can be used at the automated machines and that only e-passport-enabled passports can be used. Do they really mean that all American passports are e-passports? I shrug and decide to give it a shot, because I know I'm also registered for my Global Priority card, which definitely has that e-passport symbol. But, I almost turn tail and flee back to manual passport control when I see that you enter a little stall to enter your e-passport and then a gate CLOSES BEHIND YOU. I envision being stuck there forever if I don't have the right e-passport credentials. My passport and my face-scan work fine (sans mask, of course, but at least you're not elbow to elbow with other people, as was the case when they required a face-scan to board at SFO). I'm excited that I'm going to get to stamp my own passport, but then I'm waved forward to a woman whose sole job is to stamp the passport.
Darn it.
And then it's just a long walk to my gate. As I pass by the Rijks Museum at Schiphol I suddenly remember seeing it before, when I passed back and forth through Schiphol on my way to Prague in 2019. From there everything looks familiar.
--
Hour 2 (7am hour, CET). My gate is mostly empty. I have to guess everyone else is still struggling through security. There are maybe a dozen people in a _very large_ gate area. Unfortunately one of them is a loud, nasal American speaking _very_ loudly into his phone. He's talking about his family, which he clearly hates, and how he'd like to take them outside and beat the s*** out of them because he expects more from family. Apparently that expectation includes physical violence. The whole gate is hearing every word of his melodrama. No wonder everyone hates Americans.
-
7.30AM, CET. Loud American is still talking. He's amazed that musicians can write music that speaks to him personally even though they've never met him.
I watch the sun come up. It still won't have set when I land in Kauai (hopefully) 24 hours from now. Weird.
As the sun rise, lighting the airfield, I see that our plane, where Delta couldn't deal with seats or luggage because it was KLM's flight, is clearly labeled Delta. Hopefully that means the seats aren't as bad as KLM's.
I go in search of somewhere to refill my water bottle.
--
Hour 3 (8am hour, CET). Back with water (painstakingly scooped up from a water fountain using my water bottle cap, one capful at a time), plus a cold bacon and egg sandwich. (I was excited to see a Starbuck's, but then they had no bagels. Blasphemy! So bacon and egg it was.) It's likely to be the first of 6 or 7 meals today. I'll have to make sure to leave room for the Taco Bell at the end.
Loud American is talking about when he was _technically_ still married. He emphasizes that word.
--
Hour 4 (9am hour, CET). They push a cart around the gate area to scan everyone's passport info and correlate it with the boarding passes. Seriously? This is so strangely alien that I worry for a second that it's an identity-theft scam. But everyone is handing their passports over to woman-with-a-cart.
Still, I don't see how this could possibly be efficient and how just a few cart-people randomly iterating around the gate area could catch everyone. Maybe they're just trying to catch as many people as they can who haven't previously had their passports scanned by Delta or KLM, whomever this is.
Loud American has finally shut up, though he was growing increasingly indistinct as the gate area filled up, creating a hubbub of humanity.
-
9.30AM, CET. We begin boarding and it's a chaotic mess. The problem is that KLM or Delta, whoever it is, classifies its customers by a bunch of different names. I'm Sky Priority or Comfort+, for example. But then they board by zone numbers which aren't printed on the actual boarding passes! My zone turns out to be 4, but the ticket just says COMF. You can figure out what they're _actually_ boarding by reading a little iPad screen being held up by one of the staff members. So everyone has to push forward and jam up the boarding area to do so.
--
Hour 5 (10am hour, CET). I'm on board in the 4-in-a-row middle just behind the fake bulkhead protecting business-class. Sadly next to the aisle, which is a prime disease vector, but it was what I had available in the good seats. Also sadly without the under-seat space that Hawaiian offered in its fake-bulkhead seat. Across from me are a couple that I joked with out at the gate and seemed nice enough. (My measure later notches up a level when she pulls out _A Clash of Kings_ to read.)
We're carefully watching the seat between us, which is empty. It looks like the flight is mostly boarded, but then the pilot announces that there are 15 minutes of boarding left! We're as tense as cats in a room full of rockers.
Finally, the pilot announces they're closing the doors. We celebrate by piling pillows up on the extra seat.
--
Hour 6 (11am hour, CET). Meal #2. It's theoretically pesto chicken, but no pesto is detected. Instead it seems to be in some Ratatouille sauce. The chicken is quite good. Moist, with a bit of flavor. There are also some good cold vegetables.
For the drink service, Game-of-Thrones-woman asks for two white wines. The steward laughs. And she says, "No, I'm serious, I'd like two white wines because it'll be a while before you're back." He nods and passes the word on to the booze gal, who serves the liquor.
The booze gal shows up a few minutes later and laughs and says, "What would you like?" Game-of-Thromes-woman repeats that she'd like two white wines. Booze gal laughs even harder and says, "He told me that and I was sure it was a joke." Games-of-Thrones-woman assures her it is not, and she gets her two white wines. Booze gal also tells her that they'll be around with more drinks right after they finish the dinner service (and they are, even before they clear our meals).
During dinner, the masked couple across from me notes that one of their video screens won't come up. The flight attendant offers to let the unvideo-ed member of the couple, mask-woman, swap to the beloved empty seat between myself and Game-of-Thrones-woman, now filled with not just pillows but also one _Clash of Kings_, one MacBook, and one Galaxy Tab. I hold my breath for a moment, but mask-man says, "No, that's OK." Whew, they're probably preserving their health by staying off in their little two seats away from anyway else and don't want to make the jump to the four-seat-middle. Smart. But Game-of-Thrones-woman doesn't know how near we came to disaster.
--
Hour 7 (noon, CET). After being held hostage by the remnants of my meal for an hour, I'm finally freed up around noon. Which means I can get back to work. My most immediate goal is preparing my Designers & Dragons Patreon material for release tomorrow. (The goal of the Patreon isn't to fund the work, but rather to help ensure that it occurs, hence the monthly releases.)
So I'm back to editing "Grim & Perilous Studios", which I'd just barely started before the meal.
-
12.15pm, CET. At a quarter after noon they announce that people should lower the window shades so that others can sleep. It feels even more ridiculous than the early evening blackout on our way out, because it's just barely afternoon. But somehow, a few people are already starting to sleep.
I'm pretty sure I won't on this flight, which should land around 7.30pm Amsterdam time. The next one is anyone's question, but if I'm able to stay awake, that'll aid my transition back to HST. (Hoping to be able to: nap no more than an hour on the plane + take melatonin is usually a great formula for me, and worked once more on my trip out, other than my getting sleepy in the early evenings.)
--
Hour 8 (1pm, CET). The downside of having a center seat up against a fake bulkhead is that some jerks treat it like it's an aisle. It's just been a couple of overprivileged Americans so far, but c'mon folks. Hello, this is our row of seats on an _airplane_. Were you raised in a barn (with a bulkhead)?
To my left, mask-man has fallen asleep with his video screen paused on _Before Sunrise_, with the two main characters still blissfully wrapped in each others' arms, just a few minutes before the credits. Don't hit the play button, mask-man! Let them stay in the second of togetherness before sunrise forever.
--
Hour 9 (2pm, CET). There's a child sobbing and sobbing in First Class. I'm surprised Karen hasn't complained. Meanwhile, the rest of the plane is blissfully protected from the faraway distress.
I've put maybe an hour and a half into editing this month's Designers & Dragons work. Grim & Perilous Studios has comments incorporated from one of the principals, plus a full edit, and I've also written a commentary on it. Meanwhile, I'm about a quarter of a way into an edit on the chapter of the TSR Codex about the BECMI Companion Rules and adventures. When that's done, that'll be the end of the stuff I have to have ready for posting tomorrow.
I nap for about half an hour, constantly interrupted by my head tipping over.
I wake up to see mask-man watching the end of the Before Sunrise. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy head off in trains for different destination. His wife, mask-woman, was the one with the broken video arm, so he now trades seats with her so that she can watch it too. Awwwwww.
--
Hour 10 (3pm, CET). The long dark night of the plane continues. (Not actually night.)
After some time spent reading the various things I've collected on my Galaxy for the trip, and of course that little nap, it's back to work finishing up my edit of the D&D Companion series histories.
But no sooner do I set back to work than the attendants are back handing out packaged stroopwaffles. It's tasty, but almost nothing like the fresh one I had yesterday. I've always been amused by the constant flow of drinks and food on longer flights as a tool to keep the inmates from rioting.
--
Hour 11 (4pm, CET). It took me hours, but I've finally finished my edit of the 14,000 word Companion Rules section for the third TSR Codex. Plane hours aren't real hours.
On the screen next to me, Julie and Ethan are once more heading their separate ways.
--
Hour 12 (5pm, CET). Still pseudo-dark in the plane. Which surprises me, because it's 8am at our destination. I'd think they'd be bringing us into morning soon.
Not that there's been much sleeping by anyone that I've seen. With a few exceptions it's just been an excuse to watch movies with high contrast.
I'd swear Men in Black has been going on for hours in front of me. Next to me, more people are kissing goodbye.
--
Hour 13 (6pm, CET). 6pm and all's well? We have definitely entered the long limbo of trips from Europe to the West Coast. I'm now working on another Designers & Dragons project: adding recent material to my "Chromatic Appendix", which collects together material from my online column at RPGnet. It's fortunately mainly methodical formatting of texts and pictures because my eyes are starting to glaze from the long time in a pressurized cabin, sitting motionless in a chair.
At 6.45, the lights finally sputter back up with a bright surge of orange. The coloring was doubtless meant to allow for a more gradual (and natural) awakening, but the quick surge up likely foiled that.
--
Hour 14 (7pm, CET). For the first time on the trip, the attendants draw the (mesh) curtains on first class, I expect to hide the serving of a tasty breakfast. They actually haven't been doing a good job of keeping the animals from rioting in the rest of the plane, with just that (distant) lunch and a mini-stroopwaffle for our troubles so far.
A while later, business and comfort+ is served. I got a soggy spring roll that's too spicy.
--
Hour 15 (8pm, CET). We are finally descending into Seattle, my layover!
We land about half past the hour, then have to wait until a plane clears our gate. Apparently Seattle should have a rule about not arriving early, like Schiphol does.
--
Hour 16 (noon, PDT).
My first experience of Seattle Airport is that none of their Global Entry machines work. I shrug my shoulders and wander down to collect my baggage. I have plenty of time.
After getting said luggage, Passport Control is pretty quick, but the officer I get is one of the aggressive jerks who was probably denied entrance to the police for that reason. He seems sure that he's going to catch people in a lie as he presses hard and almost angrily at people like me who've been in transit for at least half a day.
What was I doing? Was it work? What was my conference about? What did I do?
Seems to me like a lot of that is none of his f***ing business since I'm a US citizen. But like everyone else I meekly (and groggily) answer the questions until he lets me reenter my country.
I'm very pleased to see that the place where I redrop my luggage is also labeled Delta so that I have some faith that my luggage will make it to Hawaii. (Spoiler: it does.)
When I get out past the TSA booth on the other side of Passport Control I unfortunately can't find my flight listed. And I'm a little concerned that there's a Maui flight by Delta right when my Lihue flight should be. I look up my flight in the Delta app, which thankfully works this time, and it directs me to a gate which turns out to be right. I discover the problem when I get to the gate: the flight's destination is not listed as "Lihue", but "Kauai — Lihue". Thanks, Delta.
As I walk Seattle, I'm amazed how much less pleasant it is than Schiphol. Well, then the backside of Schiphol, as the insane frontend which I mostly avoided was clearly horrible.
But it's so much more crowded and everyone's all jammed into so much less space. I was really surprised how spread out the gate in Schiphol was. Here, that'd be at least two gates' space, maybe a little bit more.
Now I wait, as my flight doesn't board until a little bit after 3pm. (I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time for Customs and Passport Control, even with my Global Entry (ha!). So the four hour layover was no great sacrifice, though I would have been happy with 3. In all, it was about one hour gate to gate, maybe a little less.
Also, there's a TV blaring here, but no one's listening. That's America in a nutshell.
--
Hour 17 (1pm, PDT)
I didn't bother with internet while I was on the flight this time, as I found I made very little serious use of it on the flight out.
So since landing (at Seattle and at my gate) I've been chatting with Kimberly and with Chris. Nice to be back in touch with the world.
And now I'm thinking about getting a quick snack at the darn McDonalds right at our gate.
I don't want to spoil Taco bell in ... 9 hours ... but I also don't have to eat whatever mediocre food Delta serves on the next flight.
--
Hour 18 (2pm, PDT)
I wander the terminal for a while to stretch my legs after 10+ hours cramped in an airplane. Returning to my gate that previously read "Kauai — Lihue", I see it now reads "Detroit".
Yeah, don't want to go to Detroit.
Returning to the departures board I now know to look for Kauai and discover our departure gate has moved a quarter mile down the way.
More leg stretching.
--
Hour 19 (3pm, PDT)
Boarding for the next flight starts just after 3. It's much more organized than the Amsterdam boarding most of a day ago primarily because they actually use the right names for all the classes.
The first thing I notice when I board is that there are no bulkheads in the plane: I can see all the way to the back and the front.
The second thing I notice is the woman in the seat next to mine. She asks if her husband can swap seats with me so that they can sit together. I have a window seat; he has a window seat. No problem. Of course the young couple can sit together on their vacation to Hawaii.
The whole Comfort+ section is just two and a half rows and a lavatory right in front of the plane's main entrance, so it's not even a big change: from the right side of the plane to the left and back a row to just in front of the door.
--
Hour 20 (4pm, PDT)
No good deed goes unpunished.
This is one of the worst seats I've ever sat in in a plane.
Oh, I have leg room, though it's not as good as the bulkhead seats I had on my other long flights (let alone the business-class seat on the trip out to Amsterdam).
But the seat is deafening. I hope not literally so.
There's a loud metallic grinding sound the whole time we're taking off and that finally lets off after ten minutes or so but then there's the constant buffeting of the wind against the door. I'm used to planes being pretty quiet, and this is anything but.
It's as if there was a reason that bulkheads exist in the cabin.
Delta accommodates the loud noise in the cabin by blasting their announcements.
I feel like I'm riding on some super cut-rate airline who is cutting every corner they can. DELTA.
(If I'd kept my original seat I suspect I would have been a fair amount more sheltered from this sound.)
--
Hour 21 (5pm, PDT)
Somewhat used to the dull roar of the door. Not being able to hear most of the people in the plane has its advantages.
Still, it's like being on a BART train for 6 hours.
The turbulence starts hitting a bit after 5 and the captain turns on the Seatbelts light.
--
Hour 22 (6pm, PDT)
I've decided I can't work any more, which is a pity because I was close to finishing up that Chromatic Appendix for Designers & Dragons and some editing for Chris.
But I guess I've been up for 22 hours, minus that very brief nap.
I'm having troubles figuring out the hours any more, but I guess it must be 3am in Amsterdam. Wow, later than I realized.
--
Hour 23 (7pm, PDT)
For an hour or more now there have been people constantly hovering behind our seats. That's because we're across the aisle from the bathroom. Surely not the only bathroom on the flight. There must be one or two way in the back. But there are obviously too few based on the constant queueing.
More Delta cost cutting. A pity, I thought they were fine on that international trip, but for this Hawaii trip I feel like I'm flying Spirit.
At least they're not charging for the lavatory.
On the other hand, the only food has been some snacks and a scam cart (of paid sandwiches). I guess I've gotten "spoiled" on Hawaiian and international flights. Other airlines apparently don't realize that a six-hour flight is long. Good thing I had that McDonalds in Seattle, even if the grease did turn my stomach a bit at the time.
--
Hour 24 (8pm, PDT)
Yeah, this one long plane trip after another is pretty tough. Feel very out of sorts, but then I've been awake for more than 24 hours at this point. Will have to think about best options for next time I'm out on the other side of the Atlantic.
At 8.15 I slide into another nap but am woken almost immediately by Delta bothering us about the Hawaii agriculture forms.
My seatmates mightily struggle with the trick question of where you're staying in Hawaii, which I remember being equally befuddled by on our first few stays here. It's just the type of thing that's often not in your carryon (or nowadays, dependent on having a cell signal to look it up on the internet).
Well, at least that all distracts me for 10 or 15 minutes and soon we've just got an hour left(!!).
--
Hour 25 (9pm, PDT)
I finally get Steam to run despite not having an internet connection and am able to play some games to wile away the last hour.
--
Hour 26 (7pm, HST)
We land! (The sun is actually setting just as we land.) My dad has to fight through a mob of cars like I've never seen before at the Lihue airport to pick me up, but once he succeeds it's open roads all the way home, yes with a pickup at Taco bell.
--
Hour 27 (8pm)
And finally, about 28 hours after waking up, I make it home. Whew!
The orangies are quite skittish, but I suppose they've never had someone disappear and come back two weeks later.
Be ready, kids, we're planning to both head out for a week next month! (But we won't be 28 hours away)