Sunday 2025.08.31
Since my flight was in the evening, I did not start packing until mid-morning. First, I had a last bit of laundry. But by 14:00 I was even with work and pretty much packed. I had my Gouda and Fuji apple lunch and then summoned a Lyft at 16:15, was in the car by 16:30 and at the Portland airport 20 minutes later. I hit the check-in counter to do the document check. Security was a walk-through, and they directed me to the United Lounge; though Condor seemed to be part of the Alaska Alliance. I had a cup of tea and texted Katen who was helping Suzie start the move to her new cabin.
At 18:00 I headed for the gate. It was chaos for some reason but I managed to board by 18:20. Condor Air 2091 was an AirBus 330-900 in clean shape; though hard seats. We pushed ten minutes late at 18:45. I watched a bad movie for an hour or so and had the quite mediocre takeoff meal. I think I slept for six or seven hours. I was woken for the bad breakfast with weak coffee.
Monday 2025.09.01
We landed in Frankfurt at 13:50, taxied to somewhere way out in the boonies and parked at a frelling stand. We waited ten minutes for the stairs, down which I had to carry my luggage, and then drove from Wiesbaden to Frankfurt. Happily they let us off at the A Terminal which was my outbound flight. Passport control was trivial and I was in the Lufthansa lounge by 14:15.
As we were due to board at 16:00 I left the lounge. It turned out we did not board until 16:30 and then it was down a flight of stairs to get on the bus to go back to the remote area, climb another set of stairs with luggage, and get on a teeny CRJ 900. Lufthansa flight 996 to Amsterdam was not completely full.
We landed at 17:50 and taxied for 10 minutes. Then down the stairs, and the long walk and then down two flights of stairs as the escalator was not working. My back was killing me from carrying my bag up and down stairs to/from planes. I made it through the exit but the SIM card sellers were closed. So I went to catch the 18:35 to Amsterdam Centraal but it was canceled. So I got the 18:39 which was five minutes late.
The Kimpton de Witt was a ten minute walk from Centraal, and check-in was empty. So I was in my room by 19:20. Not the most efficient trip. But, as Zita would say, a first world problem.
Tuesday 2025.09.02
I slept for two hours and then from 06:00 to waking to the alarm at 08:00 after a night of negligible sleep. I dressed and walked to Centraal where I got a new OV Kart and bought a ham and cheese croissant. Then down the road to the NCC, where I tailgated someone who knew me. Fergal met me at the barista, and gave me a key card and we had coffee and gossiped. I said good morning to many people. At about ten, Cristel arrived, and we spent the day talking measurement with Ties and Tim, and I was drawn multiple times into layer nine discussions with passers by. Lunch was served and much coffee was had. At about 17:45, I went to chat with Hans Petter; but it was cut short by my having to go meet Mirjam and Kees for dinner at Capital Kitchen. We had a nice evening. I took the Metro back to Centraal, and was back in my room and attempting to sleep by eleven.
Wednesday 2025.09.03
After negligible sleep, I woke to the alarm at eight and walked to the office. There was breakfast. I spent the day talking with Simon-Jan about the charging scheme, budget, etc. In the evening, Raymond, Piotr, and Maria had arranged dinner at Ashoka, an Indian restaurant across from the hotel. The food was good but typical Indian for Westerners.

We then went back to the hotel and sat in the lounge for a while.

Thursday 2025.09.05
I slept from six to waking to the alarm at eight after a night of negligible sleep. I dressed and walked to the NCC office where breakfast was served. The Board meeting started at nine, and lasted all day. At seven in the evening, we walked to the Sea Palace Restaurant, the Chinese fantasy on the river just down from the office.


Mirjam and I bailed at ten, and I went back to the hotel to try and get some sleep.
Friday 2025.09.05
I woke to the alarm at eight after negligible sleep, and walked to the NCC office. There was a light breakfast, and an intense day of Board meeting. That ended at about five, and I went back to the hotel and napped from 17:30 to 20:30. I walked across the way to Koepel Cafe and had an entrecot with salad. Back at the hotel, I read a bit and was trying to sleep by midnight.
Saturday 2025.09.06
I woke at noon and dressed. I grabbed a coffee, banana, and cake in the lobby cafe, and started cleaning up the email and the backlog. At three, I went on a search for Katen’s candy. I went to the local Albert Heijn. Then an 1.5km walk with a million tourists to the giant Albert Heijn at Dam Square. I then visited four candy stores along the shopping street. One had sold out of them last week. Haribo was everywhere, of course; but no Mao Croqui. I figured to try again at Schiphol and Frankfurt en route home. But I did get a 5km walk, 22c and sunny. I was still jet lagged and needed a nap.
At six, I headed past Centraal and past Sea Palace to A Beautiful Mess, a hipster Maghreb style restaurant to have a nice dinner with Mirjam and Kees.

We had a nice meal and good conversation. I was back in my hotel by 21:30, and asleep by eleven.
Sunday 2025.09.07
I woke at eight, showered, dressed, packed, was out of the hotel by 08:40, and after walking to Centraal, was on the 09:05 Sprinter to Schiphol. I decided to check my bag for the first time since forever, as I did not want to haul it down and up stairs to the Lufthansa City Hopper as I had on the inbund. So I went to the Lufthansa counter. Security was easy and I went to duty-free and managed to get one of Katen’s two cosmetics. After some searching, I found the Star Alliance Lounge, and had coffee and ham and bread and cheese.
Lufthansa texted that my flight to Frankfurt was delayed by 25 minutes. And then it took further delays. Eventually, the flight was canceled. They sent me a text saying that I could try to re-book using my phone, but nothing worked. Then I got a text saying they had re-booked me on KLM to Vancouver. So I went to KLM transfer desk T2 and they had a reservation but could not print a boarding pass for at least an hour. So I went through automated passport control and the to KLM lounge. As I did not have a boarding pass or the booking number I could not get a ticket to enter the service desk queue. Finally, they took pity on me and an agent started working it. That was at 12:30 and it took to 14:00, an hour and a half. The ticking carrier was Condor, the flight Lufthansa, and this was KLM, And Condor was zero help. Lufthansa did not have the ticket number. The agent was very good, but he kept getting sent around in loops. Eventually, he got some very senior person on the phone and they gave him the magic numbers he needed. He printed my boarding passes at two o’clock, and I got a snack and some water and waited for my flight.
At 14:30, I headed for the gate, a ten minute walk, waited for ten more minutes, and boarded. KLM flight 681 was a quite spiffy and completely full Boeing 777-300. I slept a bit, watched Amsterdam, and did some homework. We landed in Vancouver at 15:40, and I did the very long walk to passport control and security. I was then in the US area. But Alaska had no lounge, and I had almost three hours to my flight; a first world problem. I sat in a not too uncomfortable seat and got on the WiFi. But I kept having to move because of coughers.
I went to the gate at 18:30, and we boarded at 18:45. I looked at my phone, and the Air Tag in my luggage said it was a fair bit away in the airport, a bad sign but too late to do anything about it. Alaska 2127 to Portland was an Embraer 175 in very spiffy shape and completely full. I read mail for the short flight until we landed in Portland at 20:10. It was a long walk from the B Concourse to Baggage Claim. My iPhone told me that my luggage was still in Vancouver. So I spent 20 minutes at baggage claim doing the paperwork to get my bag some time in the future. It was the first time I had checked luggage in a long while, and it failed. I headed for the pick-up area and summoned a Lyft. The driver was a hipster in a stick shift BMW 3, but he drove very sensibly. I was home by 21:30.