From the archives, I bring you a story from our earliest days in the Netherlands. In fact, our very first few minutes.
One of the constant themes of our immigration to the Netherlands has been “baby steps.” Sometimes, learning how to do something new “The Dutch Way” (or simply something we’ve never had to do before) feels insurmountable because there are so many unknowns along the way. So we have to step back and solve them one-baby-step-at-a-time.
The mere act of arriving at Schiphol Airport was perhaps the greatest example of this.
There are a multitude of stories that precede this one: the travel from Chriesman to IAH was not without crisis. Just getting from the rental van into the airport was nearly ruinous. Penny has been sick the entire trip thus far, but mercifully slept between her bouts of puking. Ben, on the other hand, refused to sleep until the last hour and a half of a 10 hour flight. Upon arrival, we’re already at the end of our ropes and neither Kristin nor I has slept in almost 24 hours.
Passport control was, thankfully, a breeze. The immigration officer asked a few basic questions, welcomed us to our new home, and waved us through. We then had to retrieve our luggage (two VERY over-stacked dollies full) and our two very-large dog crates (plus, of course, dogs). The two customs officers we worked with to “clear” the dogs looked at each other like they both knew we were asking them to do something against the rules, but they helpfully opened a door that was “closed” and helped us wheel our belongings and animals out of the customs area… but they literally stopped like a foot outside the door. They pushed out carts out the exact distance required to close the doors again behind us and that was it.
Now… You have a very cranky 3 year old who’s operating on an hour and a half of sleep and a sick 18mo daughter who is obviously not in the best mood. Two sleep deprived adults. And four luggage dollies that are stacked to the point of turning over. And you have to get all of this from one end of the airport to the other, and ascend to the next level along the way.
For an absurdly long period of time, we thought we could use the River Crossing Puzzle to logic our way to a solution.
I’ll take the kids up to the taxi stand, leave them, then … uh … wait, can’t leave the kids. I’ll take the dogs… No, that won’t work either. I’ll take the lugga… shit, what if someone steals it? Wait, first Kristin takes the cabbage and comes back, then I take the wolf… Dammit, now we’re not even sure what we’re talking about.
“Look, we’re supposed to check in at this limousine desk near the taxi stand. They can find us help. Somehow.”
Kristin wasn’t buying it, and honestly I don’t blame her. After quite a bit of bickering back and forth in our sleep deprived state, we simply cannot find another solution. I won’t lie, there was probably some yelling, and half the Netherlands probably still remembers us as that wicked-pissed-American-couple who didn’t have their shit together. But we soldiered on.
We moved ourselves into a little corner, out of everyone’s way, and then I abandoned my family and everything I owned and loved in a strange airport and set off for help.
One of the first times I visited Kristin’s apartment when we first met, she went to the restroom and I made it my mission to catch her elusive anti-social cat Cookie while she was gone. When she came back, there I was on the couch, holding Cookie, and neither I nor the cat looked even slightly at ease. In fact, I’m pretty sure I looked like I knew… if I loosened my grip, this cat was going to skin me alive.
That’s exactly what Kristin looked like when I walked away from them, setting out across the marble plains, my own private Schiphol Trail, in search of help. Hopefully no one died of dysentery or got swept away attempting to ford a river.
My logic was this: it was the JOB of the people at this booth to help newly arrived immigrants get their asses out of the airport. If anyone in this entire airport knew how to get me, my wife, two ornery children, two bewildered yet crated dogs, and two carts full of luggage from Customs to Taxi stand… it’d be them, right?
Well, not so much. He just sort of looked at me, and I had to explain it again, in smaller English. That’s not a dig on him or his command of English, but more about my addled state at this point. While he did not have a ready-made solution - there weren’t any porters or anything to speak of, not on this scale apparently… but he did have a gung ho attitude and was immensely helpful. Turns out the guy at the window was just a dispatcher. He waits for people to show up, and calls them a taxi, van, or limo. That’s his job.
Well, he went above and beyond today. He personally came out of the booth, followed me back across the entire airport to my family, and took two whole carts to himself. He even knew a shortcut to get from where we were to where we were going. I forget how Kristin and I divided things, but I think we each took a cart and child, and forged ahead with our pioneering dispatcher in the lead. A scout of unimaginable skill.
One last challenge awaited us: they had called us a large Mercedes Benz shuttle van to get us from the airport to our temporary apartment, but the dog crates were far too big to fit into the van along with our luggage. But you see, our enterprising guide immediately fell back upon his actual job: within just a few moments, he dispatched a second van for us. I took dogs in one van, Kristin took children and luggage in the other, and we headed off to do our best to get over our jet leg…