Saturday, November 5 - Amsterdam

A quick note to readers: if airplane-geek stuff bores you, you might want to skip today's blog and move right on to tomorrow's. You've been warned.

Today was my chance to do one thing that I secretly hoped for since this whole journey became reality: visit Schiphol airport with a camera. Amsterdam's KLM hub is a Mecca for aviation enthusiasts: interesting traffic, and VERY spotter-friendly. Fortunately for me, the European contingent of my airliners.net friends is easily manipulated into a meet, and this event just worked itself together a couple of months ago.

So off I went on a train to the airport. I arrived at about 8:45, located a few of the group who had already assembled in the arrivals lounge, and once we'd met everyone (most of them came from the U.K.), we trooped off to the panorama terrace, probably one of the best of its kind anywhere in the world. We hung out there for a while, watching the action on the ramp, while our Dutch host, Erwin, took groups of four at a time to the spotting location known as "Polderbaan," which was where the rest of the day's events would take place. A popular hangout for local airplane nuts, the Polderbaan is a grassy strip next to a rural road that is separated from one of the runways and the Martinair cargo facility by only a narrow canal. In practical terms, that means a perfect shot of departing aircraft with no fences to get in the way. Plus, when the cargo planes depart, they taxi right past the far end of this strip - coming within 20 yards - and wait there if there is traffic on the runway they have to cross. Needless to say we had a good time, and in the six or so hours I was there I shot about a gigabyte of photos. Wow.

All too soon, however, we were shivering and it was time for the U.K. crew to catch their flights back home. I made my way back to the airport train station and was soon back at Amsterdam Central. Since we enjoyed our first nights' dinner so much and knew it would be a while before we had the chance to have it again, we decided to return to the Indonesian restaurant where we'd had that amazing rijstaffel. It didn't disappoint.

Back then to the hotel to prepare for an early morning flight back to Italy. I can't wait to return someday...

-Leanne