Our Norwegian jetliner took us to Schipol---the big airport just outside Amsterdam. As soon as we landed I started taking snapshots of everything written in Dutch. I had to catch up to Red several times walking through the terminal, but I got distracted with my iPhone.
We navigated from the big airport terminal into the adjacent train station, modern with a massive high ceiling over a dozen escalator portals down to the trains below. We both purchased countrywide passes for the Netherlands---good for all trains within the country, as well as local trams and buses. I put a hundred euros on mine, and expected I would use it all up by the time we left.
Nevertheless we managed to screw up our first train ride. I went down the wrong escalator at first, and also managed to use my new electronic train pass to both check-in and then checkout, so that when the conductor finally came through the train, as we were approaching Amsterdam in the dark of early evening, she told him I had screwed up.
"You've certainly got enough on the card," she said, almost impressed by my purchase. A half hour we were navigating out of the central train station, in the thick of the old city.
Later (when we were in Rotterdam, in fact, and overheard a Serbian woman having a meltdown to her friend in the next room) I told Red about a time when I was twenty that I was at the same station in Amsterdam, with my old backpack. That time in order to fend off all the people approaching me and asking if I spoke English, with the intention of pitching me something, I went to the kiosk that sold international newspapers and purchased the one from Belgrade, printed in the Cyrillic of the Serbian language. I held it up in front of me, as if reading it---a defensive shield within the intense public space. Now it was full circle.
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