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Geo: 47.6001, -122.328
I left the hotel around 8:15 and made it to Leidseplein to catch the airport bus just as it was ready to leave. The driver saw me and kindly waited while I made a dash for it. For €4, I made it to Schiphol in about 30 minutes.
Dropped my bag and wandered around the duty-free shops for a bit, then hiked to my gate. There's a sign before heading to the gates that says, "Passengers Only. Kiss and Goodbye." Schiphol doesn't have a centralized security area. Instead, there are security checks before the various gates, which is nice because you don't have to wait as long in line.
My flight to London took off 40 minutes late but the captain made up some time in the air. Judy and Steve from the tour were also on that flight, and we kept running into each other at Heathrow. I set off the beeper at Heathrow (as usual) and the security woman gave me a pretty serious going-over. I was just starting to think that she was going to make me go into a little room when she finally cleared me. Not sure why I always set that machine off.
Bought chocolates in the duty-free to take to work, and some cocoa-dusted almonds at Harrods. Also surrendered to weakness and bought two books at WH Smith. Well, I needed something to read on the plane, didn't I?
As I was waiting to go through the gate check, I idly watched one of the stations where the agent seemed to be having a problem with a passenger's passport. When I looked away, the agents at the station right in front of me were kind of waving their arms at me. So I hurried over and apologized for being asleep. One of the agents jokingly accused me - in a beautiful Scottish accent - of being nosy; the other one said I was a busybody. I love it when airport workers have a sense of humor (or
humour, in this case).
This flight took off an hour late, which meant that after an hour's flight time had gone by, all I could think of was that we should have been in the air for two hours by that time. With every hour that passed I would think the same thing. Fortunately, the cabin crew must have been fresh because they were cheerful and lively. There were three babies in my little cabin, at least one of which was crying at any one time. At least there was no scream-crying.
The guy sitting next to me, who I christened Elbows McGee after a while, was the oddest little man. He was wearing glasses but he held his magazine about two inches from his nose. He was just a very - almost stereotypically - nerdy Englishman. The guy sitting at the window had the worst cough I've ever heard. Seriously, I thought he might die at some point.
My bag arrived at SeaTac okay, and I didn't even have to speak to the Customs officer, and then John was there to meet me with my water bottle (bless him!). Chloe looked a little freaked out at my presence at first, but then she got over it and resumed her usual state of indifference. Practically the first thing I did was take a hot shower. Ah, water pressure!
So it was a good trip, but I think I wouldn't mind just lying on a beach in Hawaii for my next vacation. I'll end with an open letter to hotel-bathroom designers everywhere ('cause they're all totally reading this blog, right?):
Dear Hotel-Bathroom Designers:
Have you ever actually used one of your bathrooms, or is it all just theoretical as far as you're concerned? More often than not, your designs lack practicality. I humbly offer some guidelines for improvement.
1. Placement of toilet paper. Toilet paper should be placed between six and ten inches away from the toilet. And by "away from," I mean "in front of" or "to the side of" not "behind." I shouldn't have to lean so far out to reach the paper that I'm in serious danger of falling off the toilet, nor should I have to dislocate my shoulder in order to reach the paper, which you have brilliantly placed right smack next to and slightly behind the toilet. In fact, this placement is so brilliant that I have to sit sort of diagonally in order to avoid actually sitting on the toilet roll.
2. Number and placement of towel bars. Every hotel bathroom is going to have a minimum of two towels per person: a hand towel and a bath towel. This means there are at least four towels in all but the single rooms. So why so stingy with the towel bars? And why is the one lousy towel bar all the way across the room from the shower? Why? Put a towel bar by the sink for the hand towel(s), and put another one by the shower for the bath towels.
3. Shower curtains. Look. There should be a minimum of one shower curtain. And it should be weighted at the bottom so it doesn't try to hump my leg while I'm rinsing shampoo out of my hair.
4. Shower drain. If the bathroom space can only support a shower stall (as opposed to a tub), then please ensure that the drain is flush with the floor tiles so that I don't step into a hole every few seconds, thus scraping my heel or stubbing my toe.
5. Lighting. I do appreciate bright lighting in a bathroom, but why does it have to be so weirdly placed? If I get within ten inches of the mirror, suddenly I look like Lon Chaney in "The Phantom of the Opera." What's with all the shadows? I can't put on my eyeliner if I can't see my eyes. Talk to a lighting designer and knock it off with all the indirect lighting.
6. Hair dryers. I love not having to dig my travel hair dryer out from the bottom of my suitcase, so I usually appreciate it when there's a hair dryer in the bathroom. But seriously: Enough with the dryers that look like vacuum cleaner attachments. They heat up to 267 degrees and are impossible to hold in one spot for more than a nanosecond. And those hair dryers where one has to hold down a button during the entire hair-drying process, what bright spark invented those? They're ridiculous, and I end up with thumb cramp by the time my hair is finally dry. Is a guest walking away and leaving the dryer on really a problem? And by the way, note that I said I appreciate it when there's a hair dryer in the bathroom. If you're going to put the dryer someplace else that's 16 feet away from a mirror, then you might as well forget it.
7. Electrical outlets. So you've elected not to put in a hair dryer.I can live with that. Sure, it means some digging around in my bag and trying to locate the adapter, but that's not really a problem. Once I've found my dryer, however, I expect to be able to plug it into an outlet that is situated no more than 12 inches from a mirror. I shouldn't be forced to stand across the room peering at a vaguely me-shaped reflection in a poorly lit mirror, nor should I have to stretch the dryer's cord to the breaking point and lean painfully to one side in order to see a small portion of my head.
See? Tiny, easy things that you can work on to make your bathrooms better!
Hugs 'n' kisses,
Teresa
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Mary
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Brilliant bathroom diatribe! It really should be published in travel and resort magazines. And I hope writing it made you feel so much better. Happy memories. Thanks again for sharing them.