In Transit

The quiet of our final morning in Holland felt quite a contrast from the festival scenes of the day before! The day started and finished with a short hike and a train ride. One train ride provided a spacious, comfortable, silent transfer for the price of a couple of coffees, while the other was sweaty, hot, noisy, over crowded and cost twice as much as my flight to Amsterdam. I'll let you guess which was which!

It was amazing how quickly the town had been cleaned up and packed away after the festival. It made for a very chilled walk back into town.

And we were soon back at the funky station.

I was glued to the window as we where silently whisky away and into Amsterdam's 'Schiphol' Airport

We had time for a final drink together and a check that we'd gear got the right stuff in our separate bags, before we got to the security gates.

Here, we had to go our separate ways again, as Clare was flying to Milan and I was returning to Manchester in the UK and had to queue up in a separate part of the airport to get my passport stamped as I was 'leaving Europe'. Ridiculous....

I had an hour to kill after the effortlessly smooth passport checks (no need to take laptops or liquids from bags at this airport?! Why?)... Happily, I found some sleeping chairs for people 'in transit' or between flights. I seemed to qualify, to had a nice rest.

Things perked up considerably, when I met my friend Pete in the Airport! He was also flying back to Manchester - I'd previous sent him a message to see if I could pop in once my flight got back - he'd replied saying no, he was away and would be traveling on that day - little did we know we'd be travelling on the same flight! 

Having sprinted across the passport hall, I made the first train with seconds to spare and then the connection which had a generous 120 seconds to get off the train, over a foot bridge and to the end of a platform to before it left. Amazingly, I made it. It was only then that I checked the bus timetable, to find that buses on a Sunday finish at 17:00. I was due in at 18:30. Thankfully, by chance, Ben was in Bangor and offered to pick me up and take me up to John's house where he and Ange were hosting a pizza party on the terrace of their house. It made for a wonderful return home and we sat and chatted until the sun started to dip towards the horizon.

From here, the final leg of my journey saw me climbing up and over the hill behind John's house and eventually down to our side of the mountain in the last of the light.

Made it home with the last glow on the horizon in time for a much needed shower and a lie down!