Fun & Famous

part 2

The pain of missing your flight is called

Where were we? Oh yes, at customs. We just ran there. Haven't read part 1? Then dive into this post.

7:23 PM – Customs

Lil immediately places her enormous suitcase on the conveyor belt. Are there any liquids in it? Lil stubbornly replies ‘no’. We knew better, because there were three full packs of Victoria’s Secret, my toiletry bag (I’m a beauty editor, so that’s quite a big deal) and Lil’s. But anyway, the answer was a stubborn no. Besides, I was a walking electronics nerd with two laptops, quite a few chargers, three cameras, and thirty-five cards. All had to come out. I took my time with that, because I knew Lil would be busy for a while as her suitcase went through the x-ray machine.

7:30 PM – Customs part 2

I got through customs quite smoothly. I hadn’t done anything wrong, so that shouldn’t have been an issue. And Lil, yes, that suitcase was set aside for a thorough check. The size was no longer that of hand luggage. We were assigned to a sort of lookalike of Ryan Reynolds and thought that would be our salvation. He would understand what Victoria’s Secret was and why a well-filled toiletry bag is essential during Fashion Week.
That was not the case. And he was also slow. It became Ryan Slow Reynolds. And he didn’t understand what Victoria’s Secret was (not even when another woman behind customs emphasized how crazy what we had bought was. He wouldn’t even take it from a colleague!). Then he started to examine all the beauty products we had in the suitcase (digging through some dirty underwear) one by one and putting them in a plastic bag. Mine was already in a plastic bag, but he took everything out one by one. And we were just hoping for all that beauty from Victoria’s Secret. But no. After six minutes of him unpacking and repacking everything and me saying twenty-three times that the flight was about to leave, he threw our stuff in the trash, closed the suitcase, and said we could go. We didn’t have time to cry: we had to move on.

7:40 PM – Away from customs

We immediately ran into the hall and saw that we had to be at gate 557. I had my glasses on, so I quickly spotted a sign with 557 to 629 on it. Lil cheered and we high-fived, because we were going to make it. Until I turned the corner. 557 was not the first gate, but the last. Or technically the first, but from the other side. So we had to run. AS FAST AS WE COULD. With somewhere in between three somersaults, a suitcase that from that moment on was missing a wheel, and a toe that was off for Lil. But hey, we were almost there.

7:44 PM – Arrival at the gate

I think I’m going to sign up for a marathon. I could seriously win it, I was that fast. But we weren’t quite there yet. There was simply no one at the gate anymore. So we could just walk through. A small plus. Okay, a colleague from another gate asked for our boarding passes, but when she saw our stressed faces, she sweetly nodded at us. So we ran through. But the jet bridge was already closed. There was even a ribbon in front of it. And because of that, we looked at each other sadly. Missed flight AND Victoria’s Secret in the trash. How much sadder could it get?

7:46 PM – A glimmer of hope

Yessss. There was a glimmer of hope. Lil saw two stairs out of the corner of her eye. I had to go down them because she couldn’t anymore. So she took care of our suitcases. And when I rolled down the stairs, I was just at the airport. The asphalt-airport. Let’s say: outside. So I threw my arms in the air, was happy, ordered Lil to come, and saw life totally back on track. And so did Lil. Even though she had two suitcases in her hand, a broken toe, and was as red as the sole of a Louboutin (thank god she hadn’t worn those the last three hours).

7:47 PM – At the airport. Outside.

Overheated and slightly panicked, we stood outside. Someone immediately came up to us. “To Brussels ladies?” “To Brussels????!!!!” “Yes ladies, to Brussels, right?” NOOOO. “AMSTERDAM.” That last part was in unison. Then he pointed to a plane that was leaving. And Lil and I could only say ‘No. No. No.’ And in between somewhere Victoria’s Secret. But mainly ‘no’. We didn’t even realize that he was pointing to another plane that we had to run to like crazy and where we could enter via the emergency stairs.

7:51 PM – On the plane

And then we were in. Incredibly red. Incredibly hot. I think we won’t be able to sweat for the rest of our lives. And I think the other passengers will never want to sit on a plane with us again. We laughed so hard. But hey, we were on time. And I still have the friendly hope that Mr. Ryan Reynolds’ girlfriend and Ryan Reynolds’ mother are now enjoying themselves with Victoria's Secret. Only then is it truly all well that ends well.

So. What have we learned?

– We will never buy full packs again while flying only with hand luggage.

– That neat three hours check-in in advance? We will stick to that.
– We need to exercise. Train for marathons, train for sprints. Not that this will ever happen to us again, but it’s a lesson.
– English. We need lessons from Elke. We can communicate just fine in English, but in moments of stress, considerable Dutch sentences slip in, making it just incomprehensible babble.
– Okay, and we’re just never doing this again.