Our trip back to Groningen, Part 1.

While we didn’t exactly repeat an experience like our orginal trip to Holland with the frustrated cab driver, our travel back to Holland was still "memorable". Should I start by mentioning that we had 5 pieces of luggage plus carry-ons? That would be one more piece that we originally came with.

I got a little carried away with all of the sales. And the food at Costco. And Safeway. And the 5 DVDs I purchased at Costco. And our Christmas presents. And the two black coats. And the three pair of shoes (two of them were boots). And the new laptop. And the stuff off of Brad’s old desk in Vancouver. You got the picture?

Thankfully, I was very careful and evenly distributed our belongings into our luggage so that we were within the weight allowance granted by the airline (i.e. 4 times 50 pounds). We also had two carry-ons each, including one each that was almost as heavy as the suitcases!

Obviously it had been too long since our move here for me to remember how difficult it is to transport heavy luggage to and from the train. It is one thing to drop our bags off at the airline and use a handy luggage cart or two to haul them from point A to point B within the airports. Once we arrived at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, we used carts to collect our luggage, clear customs and headed to the train station conveniently located within the airport.

Transferring by train is the preferred method of transportation from Schiphol. Nevertheless, there are only two narrow escalators going down to each platform, so you can imagine that these are like little people-funnels. In our case, one of the elscalators going down to platform 2 was out of service, so it was twice as busy as usual.

To make matters worse, in front of the escalator descending to the platform are these metal poles in place to prevent you from taking your luggage cart down to the platform. I guess they want to prevent the platform from getting crowded with discarded luggage carts? Or maybe prevent kids from pushing the cart on to the tracks? Needless to say, the poles are far too close together to allow large rolling suitcases from easily being navigated around them. Believe me, when you're each loaded down with 150 pounds of luggage, this was a daunting task!

I was in the front trying to drag my two suitcases between the poles while balancing my heavy backpack and small carry-on. I was holding up Brad and a horde of people behind him. The people who were waiting for us to navigate our way onto the elevator were either polite enough to wait, or were simply enjoying the free entertainment at the expense of the dumb foreigners.

So I finally managed my way onto the escalator with my luggage. I was probably occupying four full steps – one suitcase two steps down, me on a step, and the suitcase behind me was on a step. I remember thinking that I felt a little precarious. Unfortunately, at the bottom, where the escalator steps flatten out, SO DID I!! Literally, I ended up flat on my back, along with my two 50lb suitcases and my carry-on, and trapped by my heavy backpack. Brad was right behind me with all his stuff, and the bottleneck of people that were waiting for us at the top now occupied the 20 steps or so immediately behind him.

How many people do you think can pack onto a narrow escalator? Well it seemed like about 500 when they are all scrabbling to get out of the way of the lady lying at the bottom struggling to get back up. The problem with escalators is, their job is to steadily keep moving the people foward, regardless of the circumstances. It was all Brad could do to balance his heavy load and try to get me and my luggage out of the way without being trampled by the people behind him. Funny thing is, it all happened so fast that I didn't have time to get embarrassed. Brad, on the other hand, didn't hesitate to remind me this now ranks among one of his all-time embarrassing moments.

But we still made our train on time.