Closer to home!

Friday, November 20, 2009

Our flight was delayed over 9 hours. There was a technichal problem with the plane in Amsterdam and it finally arrived in Nairobi at about 6am. We began boarding around 8:00am and were cruising down the Nairobi runway in our Boing 747 before 9:00am. In all my trips to and from Nairobi, I had never seen Nairobi during the day - this was a first. It was interesting to see all the places we have visited from the sky. It put things in a bit of perspective. Larry and I were sitting next to each other (with an empty seat in between) and Russ was sitting a row ahead of Larry. Larry and Russ like isle seats and I like the window seats, so it worked out well. I stayed awake for the first part of the flight a saw Mt. Kenya from my window and the beautiful country of central Kenya. But it wasn't ling before I put my head down and went to sleep. The next thing I knew we were over the Mediterrenean Sea! I was exhuasted from our night in the Nairobi arirport terminal.

From there we passed over Greece (we saw Athens and later Mt. Olumpus) and then up the coast over Austria and central Europe. We also were able to see the Swiss Alps from 30,000 ft in the air. It was pretty amazing.

It was an eight hour flight and we gained two hours, so we arrived in Amsterdam at 3:00 pm. We were scheduled to be on the 10:00am flight earlier in the morning so we knew that wasn't a possibility. I had checked the NWA website and had seen that there was another flight at 2:30pm. We were hopefull that they would hold that flight we that we could get out of Amsterdam yet today. Russ rushed off the plane (he even beat the first class passengers off - quite to their dismay) but found out that there was no afternoon flight.

The "buzz" of Amsterdam's Shiphol airport...

We waited in line (with 300 other Nairibi passengers) at the Travel desk to find out what our options were. Three hours later we had tickets for the flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis for tomorrow at 10:00am. So much for making it home by Sunday. The airline gave us food vouchers, phone voushers and discounted flight vouchers, and provided hotel vouchers for those who had to stay over night (and asked). We used our food vouchers to eat at McDonalds at the airport. The coupon was for 10 Euros (about $17) and our meal almost used the full amount. That was the most expensive Big and Tasty I've ever eaten! Even though it wasn't Nebraska beef (or North Dakota beef as Larry would say) it sure was good after a month in Africa.

After supper we decided to stay at the hotel and wandered through the airport tracking down the information we needed. We went through customs, picked up our vouchers, and took a shuttle to the Claus hotel. It was dark already so we didn't get to see any of Amsterdam, which was a bit disappointing. It is such a beautiful area. We checked into the hotel, which was very nice. We guessed that a room like what we stayed in would go for at least $200 a night. What a change from even our nice hotels in Africa!

The welcome screen on the TV in Russ's hotel room in Amsterdam with a picture of our hotel

Boarding time was 8:00am tomorrow morning and the shuttle back to the airport left at 6:45am. So we have to be up and going tomorrow at 6:00am and ready to go. I guess we won't see Amsterdam tomorrow morning either!

In His Service,


Nathanael

"Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name!" (Psalm 103:1).