Day 14

After being dropped off at the airport we all got into the appropriate line for check in. There were 4 counters being manned, three different lines, yet the counters were only serving the two lines that we were not in. One could only do luggage drop off and we also needed to check in and the other three had other excuses why we could not help us. I was fine for a while as the other lines were quite short, so I thought it would be our turn soon enough, yet people continued to slowly trickly in, resulting in the other two lines become endless lines and after about 20 minutes, I started to share the frustration of some of my fellow travellers and the ground personnel started to experience the lovely Dutch national character when you piss us off.
After we were finally checked in and had given off our luggage, we were directed past security and then crammed into a room that, even without taking 1.5 meters COVID-distancing into account, was quite a bit too small for the number of people that was waiting there for a total of three or four flights. The night before I had tried to check in via my phone, but did not go through with this as it was only possible to check in as a whole group. I also saw that there was a health form available, but I could not open it and admittedly I did not try very hard either as nobody had truly bother about this on our way here and I figured that if they were really all that interested, I would fill out the form either on the plane or upon arrival. I had all mandatory vaccinations and no symptoms, so it’s not like they were going to send me back or anything. In that packed waiting area I noticed however that a few group members could not let this go that easily, making me appreciate the personal growth that I had gone through in the past few decades in letting go some of my control issues.
At Lisbon we had 4.5 hours transfer time, which was a bit too long to sit around and do nothing, yet a bit too short for me to comfortably go sightseeing in the city. So as the personal growth from the past decades has had its limits, I decided to buy a book at the airport and start reading.
Upon arrival in Amsterdam, nobody had given a crap about any health declaration and in Amsterdam they did not even check QR codes, instead their strategy was to hand out COVID self-tests, so that you could test yourself upon arrival and a few days after again, which may have been the more effective method compared to having hundreds of people waiting in a small area to have some QR code scanned. By the time I got home, I had however worn the face mask for 14 hours straight again after carrying it around in not always dry backpacks and pockets for two weeks, making me wonder what kind of biohazard it had turned into by that time.