{"id":12654,"date":"2008-03-04T02:40:24","date_gmt":"2008-03-04T09:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/03\/04\/travelogue-netherlands.html"},"modified":"2008-03-04T02:40:24","modified_gmt":"2008-03-04T09:40:24","slug":"travelogue_netherlands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/03\/04\/travelogue_netherlands.html","title":{"rendered":"Travelogue – Netherlands"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

I was surprised to find out, Sunday night, that I could actually check in online — even for international travel. They simply asked for my passport info — I never actually ended up having to show it until I arrived at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.<\/p>\n

Check-in, that way, was stunningly easy. I wandered up to the “Easy Check-In Bags” counter, ran my card, and gave the bored attendant my bag to check. A quick jaunt through security, and I had a couple of hours to kill.<\/p>\n

Mildly frustrating that the actual flight to Amsterdam starts in Denver — but there wasn’t space on that leg, so I ended up on the next flight to Chicago (which then continued to Frankfurt) and had to change planes. Not a big deal — I was in a front row in the middle, plenty of leg room (if little elbow room).<\/p>\n

Transfer at O’Hare was also relatively painless, though short enough I didn’t have a chance to dawdle.<\/p>\n

I lucked out on my seats across the Pond (though the Great Circle means I’m actually over land much of the way. I was on a 767, in a 2-3-2 configuration — and was on an aisle of the 3, with nobody sitting in the middle seat. And in Economy Plus, which meant some nice extra leg room. I made the reservations before the end of February, so I still had Premier status (sigh), which may have helped me get that seat. It worked out nicely.<\/p>\n

Watched Juno <\/em>on the flight, had a not-unpleasant pasta dinner, and, with the help of Margie’s iPod and some headphones, managed to fitfully sleep for about 4-5 hours.<\/p>\n

Woke up — well, hardly refreshed, but not too bad off. Landed on time, after passing by some cool wind turbines in the North Sea, and, there I was, on Mainland Europe …<\/p>\n

… which, given the pervasiveness of English in the Netherlands, was almost like being in the UK.<\/p>\n

Passport control was simple (the fellow at the podium was easier to understand than many UK passport control officers). Bags were long in coming out, and the slide from the conveyor belt down to the carousel was brutal (he said, watching one bag, not his, send a plastic wheel flying as it slammed down into place). Met the Boss Man outside Customs (nothing to declare, not even a hairy eyeball from the folks manning the station), and caught a taxo for the 15km trip over to the fabulous Holiday Inn Leiden.<\/p>\n

The Netherlands reminds me a lot of the California Central Valley, esp. up around Stockton and Sacramento — lots of fields, trees in windbreak lines, clusters of housing and industry, flat-flat-flat. And then, all of a sudden, you spot the spire of a 300-year-old church in the distance, or a windmill. Cool.<\/p>\n

Checked in — partially. Turns out, it being 9:30a, that my room wasn’t empty yet. So here I sit in the little Business Center. I’ve determined, mercifully, that the 5-euros-an-hour Internet tariff only applies to the fixed PCs here; I can get a wireless connection for 80 euros for a week, which is only a scosh more than most hotels. Which means I can actually post this once I’ve finished writing it.<\/p>\n

Like … now<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was surprised to find out, Sunday night, that I could actually check in online — even for international travel. They simply asked for my passport info — I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8777,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/04\/17\/travelogue_13.html","url_meta":{"origin":12654,"position":0},"title":"Travelogue","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 17-Apr-06 2:46pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Got to the airport in plenty of time to make arrangements to upgrade my travel from Economy to Business Class. Except that, unlike what the happy-peppy folks at Expedia told...","rel":"","context":"In "Movies"","block_context":{"text":"Movies","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6782,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/01\/03\/the_oooooooonly.html","url_meta":{"origin":12654,"position":1},"title":"The oooooooonly way to fly!","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 3-Jan-05 10:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, I promise to stop trying to trump other people's air travel Sob Stories. These folks definitely win the brownie: Some of the 300 passengers stuck on an international flight...","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":136667,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/02\/american-airlines-really-does-not-want-my-money.html","url_meta":{"origin":12654,"position":2},"title":"American Airlines REALLY does not want my money","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 2-Jun-18 5:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"You know what, I'll flat-out say it -- unless it is the only way to get to my destination (and I'm talking even if that means flying at an inconvenient time or a more expensive flight), I will not set foot on an American Airlines micro-bathroom-equipped airplane. Period. (At least\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/15280964193571.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/15280964193571.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/15280964193571.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/15280964193571.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8244,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/01\/12\/quick_update.html","url_meta":{"origin":12654,"position":3},"title":"Quick update","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 12-Jan-06 9:45am","format":false,"excerpt":"Got home last night with no incident. Didn't make it to LAX in time to standby onto the 6 p.m. flight, but that gave me a chance to do a...","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24557,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/16\/not-so-early-bird-southwest-airlines-email-receipts-suck.html","url_meta":{"origin":12654,"position":4},"title":"Not-so-Early Bird — Southwest Airline’s email receipts suck","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 16-Dec-11 12:07am","format":false,"excerpt":"So we purchased our tickets back in September with Southwest for flying back to California for the holidays. \u00a0Southwest changed in the last year or so from a purely \"first check-in, first on\" with ticket queues, to the ability to buy \"Early Bird\" seating for an extra $10 -- the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/cattle-car.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/cattle-car.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/cattle-car.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/cattle-car.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/cattle-car.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/cattle-car.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":27828,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/05\/08\/tweets-from-2012-05-08.html","url_meta":{"origin":12654,"position":5},"title":"Tweets from 2012-05-08","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 8-May-12 10:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Doing last-minute prep for today's trip to Planet Houston. Will be a good, useful trip, but would rather be at home. # Finished up the Pompeii pix last night (not uploading yet). On to Herculaneum! # Interesting. Thought I had an extra hour this morning that, apparently, I don't. Well,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12654\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}