Where to Sleep in Schiphol?

I could tell India was going to be an adventure, before ever arriving. 
My dad is a retired pilot.  This sole fact has created unimaginable blessings for me to travel to the corners of the earth, for a fraction of the cost, including Europe, Jamaica (yeah, mon), Tanzania, Israel, Uganda, and now India.  The one catch is that there has to been an open seat on the plan, it’s called standby.  All my life I’ve had no problem this… until Israel (but that’s a different story. The short: got onto the jetway and escorted off a moment later, 3 days, 2 nights trying to catch flights at 2am and 4am).

I can’t say this trip was as bad as that, but it’s comparable, and more interesting.  I got to Schiphol International Airport, Amsterdam no problem.  My plan was to catch a Mumbai flight and then take a flight I had purchased to Bangalore. So I show up to the 10am flight.

Trying to keep this short, I didn’t make that flight.  In fact, I come to find a guy who has been in Schiphol for 3 day’s trying to get the Mumbai flight (there is one Mumbai flight a day).  This is no good.  To my surprise the Delta desk was very helpful to me and I exhausted every possible option, all to no avail.  Mumbai flight was my only choice, and it didn’t look good.  Air India’s pilots have been on strike, and that was overloading all of the other flights to India.

I checked my email (at 6 euro’s for a half an hour) and it turns out my team wants me to come to Delhi, instead of Bangalore.  This is normally not a problem for standby, but I had bought a ticket from Mumbai to Bangalore.  After many foreign phone calls it looks like I’ll be arriving in Mumbai at 1am and purchasing a ticket to Delhi from there.

Herein begins my 24 hours in the airport.  You get board, you know? So I hope this is entertaining:

WHERE TO SLEEP IN SCHIPHOL?

The airport's open 24 hours, but it’s too bad the ‘rest chairs’ are not comfortable to sleep in.  So I embarked on a mission to find a better place to sleep.

This looks like a promising location, but it’s in the open, bright, and noisy…

let see what else we can find.

 This guy didn't mind sleeping in the internet cafe, and handy use of a stool!

 Well, he looks friendly.

 Lame!

 Nope.

Stupid dividers.

Close...

Yep. That'll do.

By God’s grace we somehow did catch the flight to Mumbai the next day (although many didn’t). 

I land at about midnight, get out of customs and get directed left to the domestic flights.  It’s a little eerie part of the third world airport, where no one but me was walking.  I walk to the end where there is an armed guard, who is paid to look tough, and doesn’t speak much English.  He asks for my flight papers.  Shoot. I switched my flights.  I couldn’t print any tickets in the airport, and I hadn’t bought one yet, anyway.  I debate with him for a long time, and he hesitantly makes some phone calls and motions for me to sit.

Crap.  Well at least I’ll be able to talk to someone, just as long as they don’t hold me here all night.  After some time, he motions for me to get up, and he lets me through to a bus outside that I get on.  I’m still sketched out at this point, sitting in a dark bus, but after a few minutes other people start boarding, and I realize this is a normal thing.  It drives us to the terminal where we exit the airport.

Well, now I need to actually have to find a ticket. I was told I could buy one at the airport for cheaper then reserving it online, but now it’s 1am and I’m outside of the airport.  I find the entrance to which there is security, and God pulls through again, as there are ticket counters outside of the entrance.  I book a 6am flight, and go outside to soak up India in this courtyard night, and try to stay awake.  I would have booked a super cheep hostel, but my traveling nurse had just told me an awful unnerving experience she had trying to find a hotel late at the Mumbai airport, so I opted out.

I land in Delhi at 8am (day 3) and finally I’m there.  Well, almost.  I had an address and was told to find a prepaid taxi. Done. I gave the driver my written address, and we are off (after he hot wire’s his cab to start it!).  When we seem to be getting close, the driver gets out a few times and asks for directions (I will come to realize this is common). That didn’t lead anywhere, so he asks for a phone number, which I give him. Turns out we end up at the TERI University (not my guest-house) but I’m relieved non-the-less.

The TERI guest house manager comes out and he did not know I was coming, and said there were not any rooms available.  Shoot, I guess no one informed him I made the switch to come to Delhi first either.  But it wasn’t long until he found his boss who treated me to breakfast and could call my teammates to meet me. 
Whew. What a start.  That's just how India works.