Ukraine Travelogue – Part I – Amsterdam | firdouss.com

Ukraine Travelogue – Part I – Amsterdam

My company summoned me somewhere in June and I was told that I will have to participate in the business trip to Ukraine. My first thought was “wow, of all places I get to go, it’s Ukraine!”. Do excuse some of my excitement in this post, as I have never ventured more than 800km from the country’s borders, so this would be my first long-haul travel, and my first ever step to Europe, both Eastern and Western.

We’re flying with KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines), which codeshares with MAS for the flight to Kiev, Ukraine. We’re transiting in Amsterdam for 7 hours, and then off to Kiev, Ukraine. The total travel time is 12 hours + 7 hours transit + 3 hours flight, resulting in 22 hours worth of travel time. Yep, almost a day in transit.

kul-ams

Flight from KLIA to Schipol Airport was scheduled for 12 hours and 40 minutes. But we arrived after 11 hours and 55 minutes of flight. The pilot was very good, smooth take off and landing all the way. I remembered what Nirah told me at the airport before I went off:

“Tomatoo juiceeee!”

So I keep asking for it. Damn they’re good, and damn I had a lot! Haha.

Since we have 7 hours of transit in Amsterdam, me and two others decided to go out to the city for a short tour. I’ve been reading about the boat ride through the channels of Amsterdam which is about 3-4 hours worth of city tour, so we thought that would be a perfect thing to do to kill time.

So three of us checked out of the customs counter and walked into Amsterdam. Here’s my silly grin in Schipol Plaza outside the borders:
ams-01
Welcome to Europe, I told myself

As we walked out of the airport for some quick sight seeing of the airport’s exterior, we got a call from the rest of the entourage asking us to rush to the counter again to get our flight tickets changed.

I thought “What the heck!?“

But I have to comply. I am not leading the entourage so I have no choice. So this is the furthest I manage to get into Amsterdam:
ams-02
Yes just outside the airport. Grrr

So back to the queueing lane at the counters, back to the customs and passport control, and the moment we arrived back in, we discovered that we can’t do that because the flight changing is impossible. Apparently four of the guys who come with us have a different flight schedule to Kiev, that’s because they are from different companies that joined later into the trip, and the trip leader wants everyone to be on the same schedule.

So since it is impossible to change the flight, and we have already come back into the airport, past the customs and passport control, we think it’s not a good idea to attempt to go through the passport control again, otherwise they might think we’re up to something (by going in and out of Amsterdam rapidly, seemingly for fun or collecting stamps).

So we hang out by the casino (there’s a cafe here):
ams-03

After getting bored out of our minds, we decided to go around and see if there’s anything we could buy, since things here are duty-free. But first, some of us needs their nicotine fix (me too, haha). So we started scouting for smoking areas.

We found it, after almost 30 minutes of walk from the center of the terminal to the other end. Man this airport is huge.
ams-04
We’re only allowed to smoke in this telephone booth room, which allows only 16 patrons at once

I want this smoking “booth” at home some day.

I went to the casino afterwards to checkout what they have (actually I went here again a few hours later because they have a smoking booth). One dude in transit decided to throw his 50cent coin away into the slot machine because he doesn’t like to keep coins.

He hits the jackpot!

So the guy who wanted to dispose his 50cent now come back with 2000 Euros worth of coins. He was like “oh man now I have MORE coins!”. The guests chuckled at his reactions. I was tempted to try but I decided against it.

After that we’re off to fly to Kiev, Ukraine.