by Jen Malone
So much for leaving the drama at home.
I could really go for some coffee. And a shower. Anything that will clear the cobwebs out of my brain. I guess there’s a reason people coined the term “medicine head” because I’m feeling fuzzier than a pair of slippers right about now. I trail the few lingering passengers up the Jetway and into the terminal.
It doesn’t look so very different from the airports in Cleveland or Philly, where I made my connection. I’m not sure what I expected, but this is Europe. Shouldn’t it feel totally foreign? Like maybe the air should be different somehow? Even the signs are in English and there’s a banner advertising a McDonald’s in Terminal One.
Somehow this is both a huge relief and oddly disappointing.
I follow the crowds to the passport control line and fumble for my passport inside my shirt. Elizabeth made me get a ridiculous-looking money belt, which is like a flat fanny pack I’m supposed to wear buckled around my waist on the inside of my clothes. She says it will keep my money and documents safely on me at all times, yet protected from pickpockets. Apparently there’s this rumor online about thieves on trains who wrap bundles up to look like babies and then throw them at tourists. Because who wouldn’t reach up to try to catch a tiny infant sailing through the air? Which is exactly when they rob you blind. These are the stories I wish she’d kept to herself. Nonetheless, I’m sort of grateful to her at the moment because at least I don’t have to worry about my passport lying abandoned underneath an airplane seat.
I reach the front of the line and slide my only identification under the glass divide to the security guard. Even though I have Elizabeth’s to show at hotel check-ins with the tour, I draw the line at committing international fraud. I hand him Aubree Sadler’s brand-spanking-new-and-extremely-expensive-to-procure-last-minute passport, with every page boringly blank. Kinda like my brain right now. Ugh.
So. Groggy.
The man looks at it for two-point-five seconds, riffles all the empty pages, and settles on a random one to press his stamp onto.
“Next!” he calls as he slides it back to me.
And just like that I’m in Europe, officially. I thought the occasion would be more noteworthy somehow. I shuffle away, hugging my backpack—er, frontpack—as I navigate to baggage claim and watch, dazed, while the luggage comes bubbling up from a conveyor belt below to thump onto a circling carousel.
I grab my suitcase, then head back upstairs to grab something to eat. Step by step, that’s how I’m going to take this whole experience, because if I think ahead past the next step, the panic attacks threaten. Elizabeth and I reviewed my arrival in painstaking detail and I know from her online research there’s a food court in Lounge One upstairs with real American fast food chains. I’m not ready to take my chances with Dutch food just yet. My sister even included a map of the airport facilities in the Amsterdam section of my binder.
I stop sharp in the middle of the walkway. A small child pushing a doll in a stroller and chattering away in a foreign language nearly crashes into me.
“Sorry,” I say. But inside I am screaming.
My binder!
My binder and my phone are tucked inside the seat-back pocket.
On the airplane.
Oh my God, oh my God! If I hadn’t been so out of it and in such a rush to get off the plane, this never would have happened. I can’t believe I did something so totally stupid. That binder has everything, EVERYTHING, I need for this trip. And my phone! My phone is my only method of communication.
What am I supposed to do now?
SIX
I race back toward the gate, but as soon as I reach the security line, I hit a roadblock. I’ve already exited the secured part of the airport and there’s no way they’ll let me pass through without a boarding pass for an outgoing flight.
This is a nightmare.
I veer to the side of the line and flag down one of the officials. He doesn’t look all that friendly, but maybe it’s because he has passengers asking him stupid questions all day. I explain my situation and his eyes soften.
“I’d like to help you,” he tells me in perfect English with only the faintest of accents. “But I’m not permitted to leave this area. Perhaps you’ll have more luck talking to an AirEuro representative at the check-in desks.”
He points me in the right direction and I take off at a run. I’m fairly sure I look like a certifiable crazy person as I attempt to race through the terminal, dragging my suitcase behind me and keeping one hand wrapped around my could-spill-forth-at-any-moment frontpack.
I’m huffing by the time I reach the airline attendant.
“Um, hi, do you speak English?” I ask.
She smiles easily. “Of course,” she says in flawless, accentless English. Okay, why does everyone here sound more American than I do?
“I left my whole life on the plane,” I tell her. Total understatement too.
“Well, I’m here to help. We can file a report for your missing item and when we locate it, we’ll alert you.”
I stare at her for a beat or two before saying, “No, please, you don’t understand. I can’t file a report and wait to hear from you. I’m supposed to lead a bus tour of senior citizens through nine countries over twenty-two days starting tomorrow morning and all of the information I need to do it is in a binder I left in the seat-back pocket along with my cell phone. So, see, you wouldn’t even be able to contact me to let me know you found it because I don’t have a phone. And I’d say you could call me at my hotel, but I don’t have a hotel. Well, that’s not true. I do have a hotel, because the tour company booked one for me, except I don’t remember the name of it, because I didn’t think I’d have to memorize it, since every single detail I need is in a binder my sister made me. And she’s home waiting for her court date because she was arrested and she sent me here instead, which is insane because I’ve never even been farther away from Ohio than Evanston, Illinois, where my sister went to college, and . . .”
I run out of breath. The desk clerk has every right to call security and have me tossed into the Netherlands version of an insane asylum, but she doesn’t. Instead she picks up the phone and rattles off something incredibly fast in a language that sounds like most of the letters are formed in the grunting part of the throat. She pauses and places her hand over one of mine.
“What flight were you on, love?”
I give her the details and she’s off and running again. Finally she replaces the receiver.
“I sent someone to the gate to see if we can flag down the plane before it takes off, though it’s very possible the cabin doors are already closed. But don’t worry. We’ll also check with the lost and found to see if the cleaning crew has turned anything in. And there may be some of the attendants from your flight still lingering in the airport, and if so, we’ll do our best to locate them.”
My knees go weak at her kindness. Someone to take care of me. This is all I want right now. I’m groggy from the sleeping pill and sticky from the running and panicked from, well, the panic, and this woman’s eyes are puppy-dog friendly. Maybe she can take me home with her.
“This will all take some time,” she says. “Perhaps there is something you need to take care of while you wait? Exchanging money or having a meal?”
“Yes, please. The food court?” I use my shirt’s sleeve to wipe a bead of sweat from my forehead. A cup of coffee would be heavenly.
“Of course. Let me tell you where you can find it.”
She whips out an airport map identical to the one in my binder and circles Lounge One.
“Now, my name’s Marieke, so if someone else is here when you get back, you just have them ask for me, okay? M-A-R-I-E-K-E. Like Mary Kay, the makeup company, yes?”
I want to throw myself into her arms. “Okay,” I manage over the lump in my throat.
I cling to the airport map. Marieke is back on the phone before I’m even out of sight.
This is in fate’s hands now.
T
he caffeine from the steaming cup of coffee adds to the jitters I already have from worrying about the binder and my phone. But I try to block it all out and just focus on the aroma and the American-ness of my accompanying bagel.
I am calm, I am zen. I am calm, I am zen. I figure if I can repeat this enough, maybe I can trick my brain into believing it. It sort of works.
When I feel human again, I head back into the terminal. All around me people are moving efficiently. Zooming by with luggage carts, walking with authority to their terminal, pausing to buy cheese at the cheese store.
Holy crap, there’s a cheese store. An entire store selling only . . . cheese. In the airport. Somehow this strikes me as ridiculously exotic. These Europeans. They like their cheese enough to have a whole cheese shop in the airport. If the airport has cheese shops, what amazingness could possibly be waiting for me outside here?
For one of the first times since Elizabeth hatched her crazy plan, I allow a twinge of excitement to float above the fear of the unknown. I have no binder, no phone, and no clue where I’m going, so how is it remotely possible that I’m a little bit giddy? Over a cheese shop.
Is this hysteria? Am I about to lose my marbles in the middle of Schiphol Airport in front of people from nearly every nation in the world? I don’t know, and at the moment, I don’t even care. I just know I have to keep moving before the enormousness of everything hits me.
On my way back to the AirEuro counter, I stop in a gift shop and buy six travel sewing kits, each containing one safety pin. There. My backpack now looks like Dr. Frankenstein stitched it up, but at least I can wear it properly again.
Is it time to go home yet?
“I’m sorry that took so long,” I tell Marieke.
“That is no problem. But I’m so sorry, too. I do not have your belongings.”
Well, so much for my mini bubble of zen. It pops.
I slump against the counter as Marieke tries to comfort me.
“We are doing everything we can to locate them. We’ve left word for the plane, so when they land again in Philadelphia, we’ll have them do a thorough search for your items and they’ll be sent directly back here. We’ll take care of messengering them to your hotel. How long are you in Amsterdam?”
“Only for two days. But I don’t know the hotel. Oh God. I’m supposed to meet my passengers tomorrow morning in the lobby restaurant and now I’ll never find them. How many hotels does Amsterdam have?”
“More than a thousand.” Marieke looks worried I’ll pass out.
Instead, I thump my head onto the counter separating us. She places a hand on top of mine and pats it gently. “I’m so sorry. Do you remember anything at all about it?”
If I could have any superpower in the world, right now I’d pick photographic memory. I strain to remember the printouts I studied on the plane. Honestly, I didn’t read too far ahead because every time I tried to, I got overwhelmed. My brilliant plan was to just peek at the next day. And now I can’t even remember that much.
“I think it was something Polish. I remember in the photo there was a tall statue in front of it.” I blush. I don’t want to tell this perfectly lovely woman that the reason I remember that is because I giggled at how much the statue in front looked a whole lot like a giant, er, part of the male anatomy. “Um, and I’m pretty sure it said something about a royal palace nearby.”
Marieke’s face lights up. “Does the statue look a bit, hmm . . . how do I say this in English? Ah. Phallic?”
I nod hard.
“By any chance, could it be the Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky?”
Polsky, Polish . . . “Yes! I think that’s it!”
“Let’s be sure.” She picks up her phone and places a call. I hear a whole lot of a mumble jumble with my name in the middle. Dutch is a very strange-sounding language. As she talks, Marieke catches my eye and smiles, nodding.
She hangs up. “They have your reservation and your room is being prepared for you as we speak. It will be ready upon your arrival.” Her eyes sparkle. “You’re leading quite the fancy tour. That’s one of the nicest hotels in the city and it’s centrally located in Dam Square. It’s very easy to board a train here and take it to Centraal Station. From there, it’s less than a kilometer walk straight up Warmoesstraat. I can write that down for you.”
I try to remember if a kilometer is longer or shorter than a mile. Shorter, I think. Marieke is looking as proud as if she just solved the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle.
“You see? It’s not so bad after all. Besides, you must be very capable if you are entrusted with leading a tour group. That is quite a lot of responsibility.”
“Trust me, they didn’t pick me for my troubleshooting skills. They didn’t even pick me at all.”
I’m tempted to smack my head back onto the counter. Marieke steps around the counter to stand beside me and places one hand on my arm.
“Well, I see a very resourceful young woman in front of me. You are dealing with a difficult situation, but you have not let it get the best of you. You remembered enough about your hotel to help us locate it. I see you have even problem-solved your broken backpack. I think you are not giving yourself enough credit.”
I have to fight to contain my sniffles. Does she not grasp that I am two seconds away from throwing up all over her pristine Dutch counter? Instead I manage a weak smile.
“Good girl,” she says. “Now, I know where to find you if—no, when—we find your things. Leave word at the hotel with your next destination when you check out. We’ll make sure you get them, one way or another. Okay, so now for the train into town. I can point you in the direction of the platform.”
“Um, is, uh . . . is there any chance you could take me there?” So pitiful, I know, but right about now I just want to be led around by the hand somewhere, anywhere.
Marieke looks confused. “It’s quite easy, but if you’d like, I have a break in ten minutes. You can wait here and I will walk you over to where the trains depart and help you buy the right ticket.”
“Yes, please,” I say.
She gives me a friendly smile and says, “Traveling can take the wind out of one’s sails. I see it every day. But don’t worry, you’ll be back to yourself in no time.”
And where exactly would that get me?
SEVEN
Marieke kindly walks me through the steps for buying my ticket from a kiosk and for getting euros from an ATM, and guides me onto a ramp right in the middle of the airport to the waiting tracks below. Twenty minutes later I’m stepping off into the chaos of Centraal Station. Centraal—it’s practically English except for the extra a. They seem to like their extra letters here, judging by the street names on the map Marieke drew me. Prins Hendrikkade, Sint Olofspoort, Warmoesstraat.
I wonder how many tiles the Dutch version of Scrabble has.
I let the people stream past me for a few seconds, trying to take it all in, processing everything into two categories: “mostly familiar” and “WTF.”
Mostly familiar: the station itself looks like your standard-variety train station, the signs are also in English, and the people look pretty normal except that they’re freakishly tall and wear waaaay cooler shoes.
WTF: the voice on the announcement over the loudspeaker and the general chatter around me sound like someone has taken a regular soundtrack and amped it up to Alvin and the Chipmunks speed. The suitcases everyone rolls beside them are mostly hard plastic in bright colors, totally different from what people at home use. Oh, and the snack bar where I stop to grab a water has something like forty thousand varieties of black licorice, including salted. Blech.
I’ve been dropped in a land of awesome-shoed, licorice-chomping, giant people.
I clutch Marieke’s map in my fist and pull my non-primary-colored suitcase behind me as I step into the hazy sunshine of Amsterdam. I’m greeted with the sight of super-old-looking buildings splaying out on roads leaving the station like bicycle spokes. And speaking of bicycles . . . Holy bicycles,
Batman.
They are everywhere. Like, seriously thousands of them. I stop in my tracks, earning two angry dings from a handlebar bell on one of them.
But whatever, because oh my God, I’m in EUROPE. It looks so . . . European!
I spin in place, trying to implant every detail into my brain. I may be in completely over my head, but I’d be an idiot not to notice how the buildings are so beautiful with all their scrolls and fancy windowsills and their turrets. And the church spires! I feel like I’m in Peter Pan’s London. Look at the canal I’m about to cross over! There are funny long boats floating on it. I stand in place in front of the station for probably five full minutes, just drinking it in, while people stream past me.
Eventually I register that my backpack is getting heavy and when I shift, I feel a prickle where my brand-new “perfect for walking all over Europe” sandals are starting to rub a tiny blister on my heel. Plus, a bead of sweat down my back tells me I could really, really use a shower. Adrenaline gives way to a deep-boned fatigue.
I let the promise of a drawn-curtained hotel room, a room service lunch, and a nap pull me down Warmoesstraat, a wide boulevard with a streetcar chugging through it. According to Marieke, this street will drop me in the center of Dam Square, tourist mecca of the city. The road is nonstop souvenir shops, each one displaying orange soccer jerseys, tulip bulbs in pretty packages, entire walls of felt slippers shaped like wooden clogs, and windmill everything. Basically, all the things you’d think of when you think of Holland. You couldn’t buy a single one of these things in Ohio. Not one.
I see the seedier stuff too: youth hostels that have signs decorated with cartoon drawings of pot leaves, a sex museum, ads for tours of the Red Light District, where prostitution is legal—your basic “Vegas, the European edition” stuff—and it just adds to the we’re-not-in-Kansas-anymore feeling. It’s all so exotic and I can’t even process whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing right now.
