Random comment about this airport... it has amusing announcements for when passengers are late for their plane, something along the lines of "passenger x you are delaying your flight, please report to gate y immediately or we will offload your luggage" now this is all said in a sing song robotic English, similar to the robot from Portal, which is not the effect I think they were going for. *smiles* Also, I think that it is probably am empty threat anyway, how are they going to find your luggage in the hold that quickly to offload anyway?
Now that I've been in the airport for while, it's quite a nice place, as airports go. There are lots of seats, comfortable ones at that, and television screens setup to watch the Olympics. It also has a small art exhibition for people to look at, which was nice. I quite like the Dutch artwork from the Golden Age. The detail in the brushwork and the use of light just mesmerises me. Not to mention heaps of shops, though a lot of them repeat themselves throughout the complex. I haven't been tempted to buy anything yet though...
Showing posts with label Amsterdam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amsterdam. Show all posts
Monday, August 11, 2008
Airports. Peh.
I am currently sitting at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam with not much to do. Now some of this is my fault as I forgot to bring any EUR with me and don't feel like exchanging any of my USD or CDF, so I can't buy food, which I don't really mind as I'm not hungry and it's overpriced anyway. And I also forgot to grab a book to read from the Australian apartment this morning. But I did bring my knitting with me, which I had started up again in preparation for knitting on the plane to Chicago and here.
However, in Geneva Airport, they decided that my bright yellow plastic 5mm diameter knitting needles were too dangerous to be taken on a plane and confiscated them off me. Plastic! I bet you some of the pens in my pencil case could cause more damage than those needles! I was not happy, particularly since I had gotten them through Melbourne and Singapore airport a month ago and had checked the American travel security agency webpage which said I could take them on. But everybody knows that you can't argue with security personnel, particularly the fastidious Swiss kind who only seemed to speak French, so I pulled the needles out of the my knitting and sat down.
Thinking about it now, I should have been more prepared and put in a safety row, brought a book and some of the local currency of my transfer airport, but I always forget the prepare for the travel in my worry about the trip. To make matter worse, you have to pay for internet at this airport, so I will be back dating this later.
*sigh* Now that I've got all those complaints off my chest, I will tell you all about why I'm actually here in the first place. I am off to the Hadron Collider Physics Summery School, which is being help at FermiLab, which is an hour west of Chicago. It starts tomorrow and goes until next Friday. I have looked at the timetable for it, and it is very full, unlike some other schools, but we get a day off on Sunday to go look around Chicago, which should be good. After Chicago, I'm going to visit my family and friends in Los Angeles for a couple of days before heading back to Geneva. I've bought a fair bit of Swiss chocolate for everybody, and am really hoping that it'll last until I see them. If is doesn't, I am really sorry and will be blaming the mid-west weather. *grins*
However, in Geneva Airport, they decided that my bright yellow plastic 5mm diameter knitting needles were too dangerous to be taken on a plane and confiscated them off me. Plastic! I bet you some of the pens in my pencil case could cause more damage than those needles! I was not happy, particularly since I had gotten them through Melbourne and Singapore airport a month ago and had checked the American travel security agency webpage which said I could take them on. But everybody knows that you can't argue with security personnel, particularly the fastidious Swiss kind who only seemed to speak French, so I pulled the needles out of the my knitting and sat down.
Thinking about it now, I should have been more prepared and put in a safety row, brought a book and some of the local currency of my transfer airport, but I always forget the prepare for the travel in my worry about the trip. To make matter worse, you have to pay for internet at this airport, so I will be back dating this later.
*sigh* Now that I've got all those complaints off my chest, I will tell you all about why I'm actually here in the first place. I am off to the Hadron Collider Physics Summery School, which is being help at FermiLab, which is an hour west of Chicago. It starts tomorrow and goes until next Friday. I have looked at the timetable for it, and it is very full, unlike some other schools, but we get a day off on Sunday to go look around Chicago, which should be good. After Chicago, I'm going to visit my family and friends in Los Angeles for a couple of days before heading back to Geneva. I've bought a fair bit of Swiss chocolate for everybody, and am really hoping that it'll last until I see them. If is doesn't, I am really sorry and will be blaming the mid-west weather. *grins*
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