Flying from Amsterdam to Colombia

I had hitch hiked to Amsterdam on the 19.1.15 to stay there with some friends for a week. Robia, the half-Jamaican half-Peruvian woman that I had also spent time with in London and Findhorn happened to be there as well for some dance teaching jobs. After meeting her, Rens (a documentary film-maker that I got to know in Senegal) and tons of random people in the streets I went to Schiphol airport to catch my flight to Colombia. I get there early, after all Laura, Madeleine and Silvio had gone off to work already and I'd rather wait a little longer and read a little bit than hurry to catch my flight. I walk up to the check-in machine and hold my passport to the scanner, select the next destination which would be JFK in New York and watch the loading screen for a bit. A window comes up and tells me: 'the flight you have booked is going to leave in the coming days, please talk to one of the members of staff...'. Fudge, I had a feeling that it wouldn't go smoothly. I walk up to the KLM customer support and get to the counter to describe my situation. The slightly chubby lady with blond hair and thick make-up doesn't even check my passport details etc. but instead goes straight to looking out the flight details I mention. "Right it looks like you've been booked onto the flight leaving tomorrow and not today, I am not sure why that is though." She says understandingly. "Interesting, the site from where I booked the flight did tell me that they wanted to change my flight but I told them that it wasn't possible for me and that I wanted to leave on the date I had chosen. After that they didn't send me anything except an e-mail containing the updated flight details, which hadn't changed." I reply and put my backpack in front of the desk as it was starting to weigh me down. "Oh ok, well maybe that was because of the snowstorm then. They are having terrible weather over there and tons of flights have been cancelled in New York and all over the US." She replies in an attempt to explain the situation. "They sent me this e-mail to change the flight about a month ago though, I highly doubt they knew what the weather would be like then." I say a little worried about my situation. "Well, I can always book you another flight. Should I do that? Oh and I can see now that the flight from JFK to Bogota has been cancelled for today." She responds helpfully. "I found a flight you could take instead, but it is leaving in one hour so you would have to really hurry. If you don't make it in time just come back and I can try to find you another one." "Sure let's try that then." I say and put my backpack back on, in the anticipation of having to run through the airport once she'd printed out the new tickets. "Ah of course it is jamming now. It's always like that: whenever I am trying to do something fast it goes slower than usual." She says and lightly hits the printer to get the tickets out. Funnily enough that worked and out came my two tickets. "So, this flight is going to Lima and then to Bogota. Hurry, you can check your bag in just to the right of that white door." I run to where she had pointed only to find those counters closed, I talk to one of the employees who after seeing my ticket takes me straight to the check-in. I get to skip the queue, to speed the process up a little bit. "Here Amanda, this guy only has 45 minutes to catch his flight." He says and leaves me standing in front of Amanda who was doing the check-in. She doesn't blink an eye and check's my luggage in. I haste through passport control and the security check to get there in time. Sweating and hot I arrive at the gate - maybe I shouldn't have worn my longjohns - and end up having to wait 10min to board the plane.

On the plane I am about to sit down as a man approaches me and asks if we could change seats because he wants to sit with his wife. Hence I move on to the seat he had been sitting. I sit down and the seat next to me turns out to be free, how weird that they didn't chose to sit here together but instead wanted my seat. I look around and see the two babies in the row in front of me in an instant. I guess that must've been the reason. However I don't have much time to look at the cute babies as a man comes stumbling into a seat in the row behind me. A few stewardesses follow him, I only hear the following conversation muffled.

"This guy nearly fell on me as he tried to sit down." The woman to the left of the man said to the stewardess. "I don't want to sit next to someone who is so obviously drunk. Would you be able to move sir?" She continues. "You kno what? Tht reaally offendeds me, how dare you. Just letme fly to Lima already!" He exclaims loudly while gesturing strongly with his hands. "Would you please be able to move out of your seat sir, you have been behaving inappropriate and if we can't find a single, separate seat for you I am afraid we'll have to guide you out of the plane." The male stewardess says politely.

"Just lemme sit there," his wavering finger points towards an empty seat on the side of the plane "I'll jus sleep 'til aget to Lima." "We'd love to do that sir, but we're also not sure if everyone has boarded the plane yet. The seat might be taken." The stewardess replies to the offer. "Youuu said sheeet!!" The drunk man shouts loudly. "It's seaaat, not sheet - you a' tellinme to get out of my sheet?" After some more pointless arguments the man gets lead out of the plane. "Now this, thiss is just alittle over the topp! Just leave me..." Were the last things I heard as he passes by my seat.