Half Way There...

We have made it half way! As I write this it is 3:11pm Amsterdam time (9:11am MI time), and we are six hours into our twelve hour layover. Some of you may have known that we were supposed to have a fourteen hour layover and might be wondering where those two hours went. Well, we had good news when we arrived at Grand Rapids airport after getting up before 6:00am and making mom and dad Schipper take us to the airport at 7:00am. We were asked if we wanted to be bumped to the 3:20pm flight and be routed through Detroit instead of Minneapolis. They said if we took the bump they would give us travel vouchers as they were desperate to clear roughly TWENTY people off our original flight. We agreed after discussing the ride situation with mom and dad Schipper, and ended up spending the next six hours eating and shopping in Grand Rapids - not exactly what we had in mind when we said good-bye to our house earlier that morning.

When we did finally take off at 3:20pm, our first flight puddle jumped us to Detroit. Our next flight left Detroit at 7:10pm. Being the inexperienced international travelers that we are, we were surprised when the flight began boarding an hour ahead of time, and we were even more surprised to walk into the Airbus 330 and see the luxury accommodations that would be home for the next 9 hours. Okay, so maybe not luxury, but Nate was pretty excited to see that our headrest tv consoles let you play games vs. another person (he beat me by the way in every game we played). I'm not sure if I have ever experienced a longer 8 hours of my life, though, as sleep did not come easily for me. I think that Nate may have slept for 2 hours, and I may have gotten about an hour and a half of sleep - not good news for our layover at the airport.

So that leaves us here in Schiphol airport. I really did feel like a fish out of water as we stepped into this expansive airport. Here in this 2 mile strip is the crossroads of the world as you see people of every ethnicity and headed in every direction across the globe. Here are my impressions of airport (that we have walked the length of multiple times). Number one, there is a hotel here where you can rent an eight hour day room. You don't even have to go through the security checkpoint to get to it, but you do have to pay $130 for those eight hours! (As you might have guessed, Nate and I did not end up renting a room.) Number two, there are announcements over the loud speaker constantly ... the two most common are "this is a reminder that smoking is prohibited in Schiphol airport except in the bars and restaurants" and "Bob Jones, flying to Stockholm, you are delaying the flight, please report to the gate immediately, or we will proceed in 'offloading' your bags from the plane." The first statement is funny as there is a bar or restaurant about every twenty feet in this airport, and they are all open walls. Thus, the whole airport smells like smoke (Nate also thinks he saw his first joint of the trip at one of the bars). The second statement...well maybe I think it is funny because I haven't slept a lot, but they are threatening people over the loud speaker??

Anyway, Nate said that our flight to Nairobi appeared on the board for the first time which is exciting, and we are considering searching out the public showers in the airport - just sounds good right about now. We'll see how daring we are, though.

Thanks to everyone who has been praying for us. We definitely continue to crave your prayers as we continue on with the second leg of our trip and begin our time in Malawi. We love you all!

~ Nate and Bekah