Ireland: Seattle to Amsterdam (Thursday–Friday, February 21–22)

Written Friday, February 22 at 10:30 am, Amsterdam time (at a kid’s table in the Amsterdam airport).  That’s 1:30 am Seattle time, I think.

Leaving Seattle and getting to Amsterdam on Northwest was pretty uneventful. Watched Brother Bear (pretty good), Bee Movie (mediocre), and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (nowhere near as good as the first, and scattered with the three subplots – the defeat of the Spanish Armada was almost an afterthought – but Eric Bana was sure pretty to look at) on the flight. Had three meals (or two and a snack, if you prefer); fairly typical airline food, although with airline food being so rare these days, pretty good airline food. Got a pair of seats to myself, which was nice. Slept maybe 2 hours of the 9 total, though (but we got to Amsterdam at the home time equivalent of midnight or so, so what do you expect?). Yawn. I’ll pay for that later.

We were supposed to have a two-hour layover in Amsterdam before catching Aer Lingus to Dublin, but there was engine trouble which first delayed and then cancelled our flight. Grrr. We’re to come back in another 30 minutes, to wait for the next flight (12:00, rather than our original 9:40). I’m expecting/fearing that this will mean everyone on our flight is now on stand-by for the noon flight, and thus probably only 1/4 of us will get on. We may be stuck here in the Amsterdam airport all day. (That’s how it would work in the States, to be sure!)

Bought some mini-cheeses to snack on, and a new pair of cheap earphones at the duty free place, since the ones provided by the airline were crap and my own in-ear ones broke during the flight. Debating whether to buy some overpriced non-Starbucks coffee or not…