Sunday, July 5, 2026
Greetings from the Hyatt near the Amsterdam airport.
When we got on the plane last night (took off about 1:30am) I was completely irrationally upset. I walked the airport and talked to Maren on the phone for almost two hours – which kept me sane and happy while waiting through the delay. (Yesterday morning Mollie and Maren stopped by after they went running. I offered Mollie ice cream for a mid-morning snack. It was a holiday, after all. She chose a sundae cone. Maren and I were talking while she was eating. She was delighted to find caramel hidden inside the ice cream. Literally delighted. The box has three varieties and I assumed she hadn’t noticed the choices. When she got to the bottom and found the cone filled with chocolate, her face exploded with a happiness one doesn’t just see every day. Maren then realized that Mollie had never had a drumstick before. Liam is deathly allergic to all nuts and no nuts go in their house. I told Maren a wonderful vision for my future was having candy and ice cream available for Mollie to just hop over to get and eat – keeping her brother alive, yet enjoying treats at their best. Later in the day Mollie told her friend she had a drumstick and “it was life changing.” While I was at the airport, Mollie and friend were contemplating going over to get ice cream. It took Maren and I half an hour to convince her Benjamin would be okay with it. He was, but he somehow missed the part that the nuts had to be consumed at our house, so the girls returned and stood on the front porch while it was pouring rain and ate ice cream.)
Back to be being irrational. Poor Keith. He was doing everything he could to cheer me up. I was just stuck. I sat, stewing, for a while, trying to drag myself out of the glumnesses. I decided I wanted Delta to acknowledge my loss and apologize. We encountered one other person who was pissed about her change of seat. She was sitting in Keith’s seat. She had had a premium select seat and got downgrounded to comfort+. Ouch. When we got a flight attendant to figure her deal out, he put her back in premium select. Keith called Delta and was told there was nothing they could do. We talked to our check-in lady and she said there was nothing she could do – tell the gate agent. The gate agent said nothing I can do – ask a flight attendant. At no time, did anyone say, “Yeah, sorry this happened because of weather and crap and life and whatever. I realize you had great seats on the window and now you are in the middle section. I could get you an extra granola bar.” That is what I wanted. I wanted to be sure no one could wave a magic want and make more window seats and to just acknowledge my disappointment. It’s better when you understand what you need, so you can ask for it. If this happens again – with anything or anyone – I will try to figure it out sooner and ask for what I need. (editor’s [Keith] note: the lady I spoke with on the phone at Delta first totally understood the bummerness of the situation and apologized that there was nothing she could do.)
Somewhat unbelievably, they served us dinner at about 3am Minnesota time. I was not really hungry, but I had been looking forward to my chicken, beans, and mashed potatoes with mushroom sauce, so I had it. It was delicious. I felt better. I put on my headphones and started an audiobook. I woke up a bunch of times and rewound, but I slept through a lot. They loudly served breakfast but not until only an hour before landing, so that was great. Keith slept much better than he usually does on planes (with his noise-cancelling headphones on and listening to the soundtrack to the movie Independence Day on a loop).
Friends reported it took 1.5-2 hours to get through customs earlier this morning. It took us less than 5 minutes, so we were really winning. We walked out of the airport to look for the hotel shuttle (I took a quick picture of the sign above the exit. You never know what you might be looking for, I guess) and the little bus drove up right in front of us.
We ordered take away from the hotel restaurant and ate in our room while watching a Beatles documentary on Disney+ and drinking tap water. Word is that Belgium doesn’t provide tap water and bottled water is 10euro/quart. I do not know if you get ice with that. I doubt it. Anyway, we are just drinking tap water willy nilly here in Amsterdam.