In transit

Schiphol Airport, 09.52

I write this mostly because I can't figure out if there's any free internet here. Boff's post about Schiphol suggested there was but the only network my BlackBerry and my MacBook want to hook up to costs 3e/15 minutes, which is not a very good deal to me, no matter how desperate I am to Tweet about the various mishaps that I've endured since leaving Sydney oh, about a day and a half ago.

Where should I begin? Maybe with my last minute decision to wash my hair. Well, it wasn't a last minute decision as I'd originally planned to wash my hair before my flight but it turned out that waking up at 6am after 3.5 hours sleep makes me much slower than I anticipated and I was still trying to find my new tiny towel while shovelling a breakfast of oat porridge down my gob and brewing a coffee. The coffee, as a result, was shite so I ended up throwing it out but I still had to wash everything, including the grainy plunger. I can't remember whether I locked the bathroom window, either. Just have to risk being burgled. Not that we have very much for people to steal anyway as I obviously have my Macbook in tow. Should have maybe hid my heirloom jewellery?

Anyway, I'd planned to catch the 6.57am train from Ashfield to the airport, the one that goes around the city circle and then magically turns into an Airport Line train. Ha! I ended up leaving on a 7.32am train (not late by any means, but with not a lot of contingency to play with), getting to the check-in counter around quarter past 8 and just bang, bang, bang, customs (long line), security and then walking to the gate. After all that I didn't have very long to wait, even with the 30-minute (not very well communicated) delay.

I'd realised in the check-in line that I'd only managed to bring my China Southern flight tickets (ie Sydney-Guangzhou-Amsterdam and return) and had neglected to print out my LOT flight tickets (ie Amsterdam-Warsaw-Budapest). A quick bit of thinking had me log onto the free wifi and mail it to my phone so at least I had an accessible copy. (Turns out it didn't matter: the check-in process mostly involved scanning my passport and typing the name of my destination but it is still nice to have the itinerary for reference.)

Flight to Guangzhou was uneventful. I managed to score a two-seater for myself, which was cool, though since it was a day flight I don't think I used it very well. They had the old style screens from the ceiling setup, except even worse: the screens were only suspended from the middle aisle and I was in such a position that the closest one to me was at a bad angle and the next one down was too far away for me to read subtitles. I ended up reading and sleeping mostly.

Baiyun Airport was a stupid place that I never want to get stuck at for six hours again. The internet was activated by Chinese mobile only (hey airports, just letting you know that I don't expect free wifi everywhere, just reasonably priced, easily accessed wifi—is that too much to ask? Even Sydney managed a free version and goodness knows how backwards we can be.)

Then I thought it was really nice that they provided drinking water at a couple of stations. Except there was no cold drinking water, just 50C+ water.

Frederic Chopin Airport, 17.04

The clock on my Mac suggests I've been travelling for more than 39 hours now. I can tell you I'm bloody sick of airports and sitting around in aircraft. My health may be on the wane as well, can't tell you how many times I've been in the vicinity of a cougher or sneezer, then add the dubious nutritional value of airplane food (and my even more dubious choice of eating chocolate, drinking coffee and having dessert in between at airports) and the sedentary nature of waiting around at airports and sitting on planes and you have several recipes for disaster, not to mention deep vein thrombosis.

Flight from Amsterdam to Warsaw was uneventful. I sat next to a green-haired Polish girl, finished reading the June/July issue of Esquire (USA) and napped for a bit. They served lunch, a sesame roll with tuna, pickle and corn, which was actually quite nice, and a chocolate-covered wafer. The flight attendant was cute, a chubby Polish guy with dimples and an infectious friendliness.

Thus far I have spent my time at Chopin walking the length of the departure hall and the retail precinct looking for interesting things and finding none. The hall is quite long, maybe a kilometre in length and separated from most of the retail outlets (except a few cafes) by a walled corridor, which I find a bit strange.

I also bought (and ate, unfortunately) a 100g block of apple/plum chocolate, which was totally nice and which I would certainly purchase again when we are back in Poland probably for cheaper in the supermarket.

The exchange rate is about three zloty to one Australian dollar, which seems to go far for some things but not others. For example, internet at the kiosk is ZL1 (33c) for 7.5 minutes, although when I tried the only working kiosk the coin wouldn't go down the slot. I rescued it with a bent bit of cardboard and tried again only to lose it completely and not get any internet time for my trouble. Comparatively, I just paid ZL29.80 ie $10 for a medium (400ml) caramel latte and a rocky road cookie.

But then I texted Boff from a payphone to his Greek number for ZL0.70 (25c). At that point I'd dropped my phone case, as I often do, and was just walking back to retrieve it when two armed soldiers happened upon in and was examining it quizzically. I had to explain it was my phone case.

Everyone here speaks English straight off the bat to me, which is a change from Chinese flight attendants assuming I can speak Mandarin/Cantonese. However, it is bad for being able to pick up some Polish before we come here next week. All I've managed to remember is tak (yes), nie (no) and jen-shoo-yah (have no idea how to spell it, means 'thank you'). Need to do a crash course in Hungarian on the plane. o_0