It’s early morning, Earth Pilgrim is sitting in Gatwick Arrivals having flown over from Schiphol (if you don’t know where these are you shouldn’t be reading this!). It’s the second time I’ve been to Schiphol in two days, and I’m back there tonight. Thinking about the journey this morning I am in awe of what an experience it has been
OK, getting there was a bit of a nightmare in the morning Amsterdam traffic. I had a lift from my friend Marco who drives around Amsterdam from Huizen to Leiden every morning. The experience reminded me of my days commuting to work in London from Buckinghamshire. Packed road, running well and then bang, a wall of traffic for four kilometres, an accident up ahead just where the road narrows from four to two lanes. Just sit and wait! Luckily I am early, it’s Marco who worries about getting to Leiden in time. He does some nifty work with exits and hard shoulders and, eventually, we’re moving again.
Getting into Schiphol is then a breeze, it’s a few minutes off the ring road, and suddenly I am in this bright, bustling, fun shopping mall at 8 o’clock in the morning. Schiphol is one of the airports that has taken the ‘customer experience’ to a high level. It’s well signposted, it needs to be, it’s big. It’s bright and well designed, yes, of course I would notice that. Best of all it’s full of shops and cafes that are open for business and have customers in them. Flying is clearly an experience that whets our desires and opens our wallets. Who needs to fly, you just spend all day here and save the fare, or spend it on expensive ties and pens.
A few years ago my partner was due to fly from Schiphol to Edinburgh. She had never flown before, they are the ‘other’ people, the ones who don’t travel! Being completely unsure of the whole experience and worried about how on earth it all works, she arranged for a friend to take her to Schiphol for the day so they could just walk around and get to know the place. Where better to do this. This is not run-down Heathrow with its complex of Terminals and raging traffic. This is ‘let’s put it all in one building’ Schiphol. The biggest mall in The Netherlands. She had a great day and never looked back.
On the other hand, just recently, an American/Australian friend was flying from Singapore to Rome. She flew KLM and found she had a six hour stopover in Schiphol. She was raging about the injustice of it all. What on earth was she going to do for SIX HOURS! Wow, and here she was in this amazing mall, with a train station on hand that could whip her into Amsterdam in a jiffy, giving her plenty of time to explore the wonders of the red light district and get back for her outgoing flight. I have done this in Singapore, where they even lay on a free bus, and Bangkok. She clearly fails to see the bigger picture.
So why do I hate Schiphol? It’s fun, active and stimulating, isn’t it? Quite simply I have better things to do with my life than sit in Starbucks, drinking coffee and lusting over the leather goods in the shop opposite. I fly because I want to get somewhere. So although my friend might fail to see the bigger picture, I sympathise with her. I just want to get to my destination and get on with my life.
Or do I… Perhaps it’s the journey after all… Hmmm… I’l just go and have a coffee and think about it…
(I just couldn’t resist this picture I found of a urinal at Schiphol, see what I mean about well designed!)
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Enjoy the moment Graham…