it seems that something is bound to happen if I'm travelling by plane- which is the case also this time.
It all started very unspectacular: I left Friday morning to Zurich airport to catch a flight to Amsterdam. I was planning to go to Rotterdam for the weekend to get an induction to my new job as Western Europe North America conference coordinator, which starts on the 1st of July. Anyways, the flight to the Netherlands was not that exciting, however, meeting an AIESEC in Switzerland alumnus by chance at Schipol airport was cool! It is already the second time that has happened to me at Amsterdam airport!
All happy and anticpating the weekend ahead I thus was approaching customs when I realized with great shock that my wallet had disappeared! if lost or stolen I'm still not sure, and despite going back to the aircraft it wasn't to be found anywhere. My wallet includes everything: cash, ID, drivers license, uni card, student card, credit card, bank cards.. So there I was at Amsterdam airport with no money, no ID, nothing. The whole afternoon I spent at the police station filling out reports, cancelling credit cards, and hoping that my wallet would turn up somewhere. But it didn't. After that I thought I had left the major obstacles behind, the police man said: "just go down to immigration office , show them the report and shouldn't be too much of a problem. " however, there I was mistaken: Although the guys were REALLY nice to me, actually all the Dutch people at the airport were (they gained at least 200 points on my popularity ranking ;-)), they wanted to have a piece of ID with a picture. However, everything I have was in the wallet. My passport is at the Indian Embassy in Berne and there was no other ID I could produce. However, luckily I still had my cellphone which turned out to be my saviour. They wanted to talk to somebody in the Netherlands who could give them some more info on my identity. So I gave them the phone number of my friend Marije, who could convince them that I was the person I claimed to be . However, confirming this on the phone was not enough, they made her come and sign a paper stating this fact. So there I was at the immigration waiting for her to drive up from Rotterdam. And sometimes that fact that I'm very disorganized helps: miraculously I found ten francs (6 Euro) in my trousers which allowed me to go and have a happy meal at McDonalds. At least that. However, only after I had convinced the lady at the exchange office to not charge me 4 Euros commission. Since on that day the Dutch railway workers were striking there was a huge mess on the road. Marije and AnnMarike arrived 2 hours later than anticipated, which was totally fine for me, but I'm sure the guys from the immigration office must have found it suspicious that I kept saying "yeah they will be here in 15 minutes"! I was so happy that I could finally enter the Netherlands, plus I didn't have to beg for money to buy myself a train ticket. The lady from "visa" service centre had told me that yes I could have emergency cash, no problem, if I could show them an ID... - key learning point have a copy of your ID with you anywhere you go! Thanks girls again for all you did!
After having arrived in Rotterdam we thought that we should go for a beer to celebrate the fact that we had made it, plus to finally meet up with Matt and Heidi! Just as the day had almost come to an end, meaning we were walking back to the car to head home, we discovered that the car had been broken into: the window smashed and the car radio stolen! -The gods were really not with us that day. -So another trip to the police station...- I felt somehow responsible since if my wallet hadn't disappeared, they wouldn't have driven to pick me up, and then the car never would have stood where it did...
The rest of the weekend was very relaxed, despite the fact we were working the whole Saturday. Taco, Mate and I will be a good team I think: we have many ideas and it is also fun to work together! Besides, it was really cool to catch up with some people who I hadn't seen for a while.
Now I need to head back to work, the annual report article is calling...
