Aboard a (thankfully) partially full A-330, we had the entire middle row of four seats to ourselves. No windows but it was night and nothing but Newfoundland and The North Atlantic outside anyway. Each seat has its own video screen, and headset jack with a remote control. You can access flight information, video games, music, and movies. We ate dinner, watched two movies. It started to get light out, they served breakfast, We fall asleep during third movie, and we landed at AMS at 1220 Local.
We think we may have landed in a neighboring country, because I could have flown from Olympia to Friday Harbor in the time it took to taxi to the terminal after landing. We went past some houses, farms, over a couple of canals, over a freeway, past a fire training area with burned out fuselages, parked airliners, stopped a couple of times, and finally to the gate.
The second largest thing after the runway enviroment is the terminal. We walked toward smaller gate numbers, reasoning that there must be a main concourse somewhere. 5 min. later we found monitors to check our connecting gate, and trekked 20 min. to another concourse. Along the way found an Irish Pub, drank a beer and bought water for next leg; 6.9 hrs. AMS to Almaty, KZ. (ALA)
KLM screens at each departure gate, even though we had not left the secure area at AMS. and I have a moment of dread when at the other side of the x-ray machines are twin blue Toshiba laptops! Have they divided under the effects of the radiation? The guy clears behind me clears the metal detector and scoops his ? up and scurries off. The one left looks like mine, at least the bag does so I resign myself to at least have made an even trade. (it was ours!)
1400 Departure on an aging B-767. Each PA announcement was in Dutch and English, with the take-off and landing ones also in Russian. Day once again turned into night over Poland. No personal screen on this flight, and we were seated right over the wing for a (non) view.
Arrived 0200 Almaty, Kazakhstan. I wasn't sure what day it was anymore, and following the debarcation of the aircraft, I was beginning to question my grip on reality when we realized that what we needed was at least one pen to fill out the customs declarations. There were none at the table piled high with forms, I couldn't remember how to ask for one in Russian, and no one was paying any attention to us anyway just grabbing a card, and getting in the rapidly growing queue. I found two pens in our bags, actually in the second place I looked. We were last in line next to the line for Kazakh citizens only, which emptied quickly, We were waved over by woman in a tailored army suit. Next, "Look at camera!" , "From Amsterdam ?", Stamp-Stamp, Clear of immigration!
Our agency representitives were waiting to take us to an apartment for the night which required packing all luggage up four flights of dark stairs including (See Suitcase Day). Wired, we actually slept about four Hours.
