Chapter 2 – Four delayed runs
Delayed run no. 1
After getting into the airport lounge, I quickly got into the wrong queue. Many minutes later and I would decide to get out of the queue and make enquiry, just to be sure that I was on the right one. The queues were long and more delay at this place would not be welcome, after an eventful evening. I approached and asked the ladies in blue uniform where my exact queue for the check-in should be.
“Let me see the ticket,” one of them offered.
I presented it.
“It is surely here. Let me have your passport.”
“I have to go and get it. I have been queuing over there,” I motioned to where my two bags were still lying, blocking a long queue to my right.
I went to get my luggage. Actually, just a case and laptop bag. The first girl examined my passport. She specifically opened the visa page, and using a magnifying glass, and some shiny light, started her thorough examination. She kept tilting that visa page, in all manner of directions. It took her about two minutes before she finished the task. Why was she making me feel bad? As if I was having a fake visa or something! If only she would have known that I had to take a SACCO loan to pay the $530 for this visa sticker!! And another $36 for processing it!!! How dare she examine it for that long?
“It is good. You can go through and queue,” she finally said and allowed me to pass through her blocking desk.
I joined the new short queue and soon was getting a boarding pass, while my travel case was tagged and checked in. I remained with my laptop bag.
Getting through immigration was a breeze. Just the usual, ‘where are you going’ and ‘why are you going’ and the passport was stamped with a ‘JKIA exit’ mark. I believed that this same immigration office must have already clearing my two other colleagues who were on the same trip.
“Oh, you are also going to Norway,” he has reaffirmed.
I met the other two at the lounge and would soon be on small talk as we waited for the 23.40 departure. This was however not to be….
Delayed run no. 2
We started seeing a ‘delayed flight’ notification next to our flight number KL566 to Amsterdam. The new time was now 0140hrs.
“But we have a connecting flight to crying out loud!,” the three Kenyans said almost in unison, the three pairs of eyes gazing the screen, apprehension on each of their faces.
We were however lucky to only suffer a delayed flight. Our fourth colleague, Isaac, had missed his flight outright. He had assumed it was a 4pm flight, when in reality it was a 4am flight. After all, wasn’t the time on his ticket reading 0400? Isn’t that 4.00pm? Anyway, we were glad to just wait our turn, albeit with two-hours of delay.
We surely started boarding at 12.45am. And… that bird was gigantic! I have never seen a bigger plane in my life! With a decker to boost, that 747-400 is just the monster. It was so big that I started doubting whether it would even take off the ground with that size and weight! Sitting ten seats per row in Economy class was the standard configuration, though I ended up seating a 3-seater in the whole row, since our seats were just next to the amenities and food prep area, which took the space that would otherwise be taken by the other seven seats. I ended up enjoying lots of leg room, since there was no seat in front of my position, just the emergency door to the right. Of course, that position also meant that the display screen and folder tray, normally behind the front seat, were ‘missing’. We later discovered them hidden somewhere under the seats.
The 8hr 15min flight was smooth. Hardly any bumps. The movement of this giant was it tore through the sky was hardly noticeable. Cruising was mostly at 900km/h. It was just too smooth to think of any other thing but sleep….
A call for breakfast jolted me back to reality. My watch was reading 8.00am under Kenya time. It did not take long for the pilot to announce our forthcoming landing that was expected just within the hour. And landing we did. We were soon all screened at the arrival lounge and then let through. We would soon pass through the Dutch immigration desks. By that time all the three of us had split having been mingled up with the over 400 passengers from Nairobi and many passengers from many other landings at Schiphol, one of the busiest airports in Europe.
The person on the immigration booth looked at my passport and hesitated.
“Where are you going and for how long”
I told him.
“But this visa is valid for 10 days?,” he exclaimed.
“Where is your invitation?”
I showed him. I have learned to walk with such at hand, on the backpack.
He looked at it, consulted his colleague, then was back to me.
“When will you be back?”
“November 9,” I told him.
“Can’t you just read it on that damn letter?,” I thought of telling him. I did not.
He stamped my entry, slowly, hesitantly, reluctantly. He handed back my KLM-blue coloured passport, with the same reluctance.
Delayed run no. 3
I snatched the passport from the officer and went off. I started looking around for the direction to my connecting flight. The terminal building was massive. Though labelled, it would take effort and willpower to find your way around. I did a 360-degree look around. I managed to locate an information screen. I checked the flight information display and for sure my connecting flight was not listed. I went to the desk marked T3/T4 KLM and reported a missed flight.
“I cannot see my flight,” I showed my ticket to the counter staff.
“Oh, that delay, I remember,” the jovial staffer responded, mostly smiling.
By that time one of my colleagues, Mutua, had already caught up with me at this enquiries area, coming to report a similar missed flight. He would soon confirm that he had chatted with the third colleague who had also missed his connection.
We would soon all reconnect, as the group that missed the connecting flight. In the case of our third colleague, Obonyo, he had already got an alternative flight for 12.30pm. In our case, the lady at the counter had told us to ‘risk’ the 12.30pm flight just in case someone was to delay in boarding. The other alternative, which was confirmed, was to fly to Spain, then connect from there. That would be an early night flight and would have a longer stopover in Spain before re-boarding.
“We shall risk,” we responded, almost in unison.
“I hope I do not see you here again,” she said smilingly, “In a good way, of course.”
We were each given a 10 Euro voucher, spendable at any eatery at Schiphol, for our delayed transit. That enabled us buy two 500ml bottles of coke and a packet of crisps. The cost of items was evidently high. We hoped this ‘feeling’ was temporary, since we had a three-month future that awaiting us.
The three of us sat at terminal B22, waiting for the 12.30pm boarding. A new face of KLM would manifest when my colleague attempted to make enquiry about our ability to fly ‘on risk’, just to be sure that we had a chance.
“I am busy,” the lady at the counter told him, without even looking at him.
The I-am-busy statement was a hard one to forget, and would become a word in our vocabulary as we started life in Europe.
Thereafter, her bespectacled nature made her too serious and unapproachable to get information from her anymore. The passengers were called to board and they started streaming though the stairway towards to plane that was parked on the tarmac, just on the other side of the glass windows. By that time Oby who has a confirmed booking had already boarded, leaving the two of us waiting. After an eventually, of almost ten minutes, the lady attendant came to, and asked, “Yes, what is it?,” while looking in our direction. We were now the last two people remaining at the waiting area. Everybody else had boarded.
My colleague explained the missed flight situation and that we were told to wait at this gate and were to confirm the status of available spaces on the 12.30pm flight to see if we could be able to get onboard. The lady motioned him to wait as she checked her computer screen. She indicated that only one seat was left and… and that seat goes to… She looked at her computer screen once more… “Mu..tu..a…ur.. eh…i?, Who that be?”
So my colleague Mutua was the one who walked through the metal detector and boarded, while I was the very last person standing at the waiting area, waiting for the painful response that I already knew too well, “The plane is full, get another booking”
I walked back the long corridor of about two hundred metres to KLM enquiries desk. Coincidentally, the same jovial staffer, who had served me the first time was still on duty, served me when I went back to T3 this second time.
“Sorry for missing,” her bespectacled self said, while checking her computer system, across the glass barrier, beyond my reach.
She kept typing, “Let me see…,” she went on typing.
At some point she deleted some typing, then paused and looked up, “You know, my typing is faster than my reading. Due to this,” she pointed at the specs. She resumed typing.
“Now this,” she kept typing, loudly, audibly, “This flight here…,” she kept talking and pointing to the screen. To herself and to me at the same time.
“Oh, wait!?,” she exclaimed!, “I have two options,” she stopped typing and looked up, even adjusting her specs.
“You risk another 2pm flight or you get confirmed seat at 4.30pm.”
The choice was clear – a confirmed 1610hrs flight. I did not get another voucher though, but was just glad that finally I would be out of Amsterdam, where I had been since eight in the morning. By this time, being about one-thirty, my two colleagues were almost touching down at the western coast of Norway, at Sola International airport in Stavanger.
My wait would finally be nearly over as I started hanging around gate B32 as indicated on the boarding pass, only to see nothing like a flight to my destination. If anything, the next flight was to Oslo at 1650. So where the hech did my connecting flight go to? That is when I recalled the almost unimportant small talk from the jovial KLM lady as I confirmed this flight, “This gate number on the boarding pass is just temporary, it can change.”
A close examination of the various other flights indicated on the information screen and their different gates indicated that the Sola flight was to be boarded on gate B22. But it was not to be. Just when relief was about to engulf me as I started my walk to B22, the infamous ‘delayed flight’ started displaying next to that flight number. Surely, lightning cannot strike twice!
Delayed run no. 4
The new time would turn up to be 1700, just about an hour after the scheduled time. I was just glad that the end was near. Finally, we were called to board. This was a small 4-seat per row plane, though it was still full to the brim. It took only one hour and thirty minutes to cross the Atlantic and emerge on the shores of Norway and land at Sola. Getting out of the plane was fast. Getting the luggage out of the plane would however take some time, almost twenty minutes.
Finally, the luggage started rolling out and the passengers picked their own as they recognized them. The long conveyor kept rotating the bags, initially many, and eventually very few as they kept being taken off. Finally, the message, “last luggage removed”, was displayed on the information screen. The conveyor was now almost empty, with only two or three pieces of luggage circling on and on. Finally, I would come to the realization that my luggage was missing as the conveyor kept circling with the same luggage that did not have mine. Passengers kept collecting their stuff and leaving, clearing the yard to almost nothingness.
I was now left alone, with another two passengers, to go and report our missing luggage. I was second on queue at the reporting desk. The first person reporting was just taking too long. I was getting impatient. And… thank my impatience, since as I looked around restlessly, I did observe one bag put aside, just next to the reporting desk. This case was not among those that had rolled around that conveyor. And wait a minute! It looked like my own travel case! And, surely that it was my case! I left the queue just before I was beckoned to make my report. I walked to the case, reconfirmed that it was mine, took it and left the building. There was no passport control to stamp the passport. I just left the terminal building, without hinderance or questions, just like the rest of the travelers.
I found my contact person waiting. Earlier, I had sent him a message about the delayed flight and hence he had been aware of this delay. I got into this ride and were soon on the road to wherever we were going. The roads were practically empty. I could not count more than ten cars during the journey that took us about fifteen minutes. We finally came to a compound that was characteristic of a typical university campus. It was sure was, as it turned out to be labelled ‘Universitetet i Stavanger’. We reached the campus when it was already raining. It was just past 7pm now. The visibility was however still as bright at mid-day.
Our host, Ralph, would soon drop me in the same ride to Kiwi supermarket, to get a few provisions, since the next day would be a Sunday and “All shops are closed on Sunday,” he had already alerted me, “So you can only get your items today or wait till Monday.”
Ralph was polished in English, which was unlike the other Norwegians that we would interact with in the course of our stay. We later came to know that he was originally from the US and had just settled in here in the last six years.
“I am still learning Norwegian. I can read well, but still struggle speaking,” he later confessed.
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