It’s been a whirlwind last couple of days.

So many little things to cross of the list before embarking on my first trip in 5 years.   I had finished all my trip shopping earlier in the week, but I still had the last minute things to do.

Figuring out my last few meals so I didn’t have any food left in the fridge to spoil.   Had to take out the garbage, do a last load of laundry.   All these little things.

Not to mention finishing that last 1% of packing this morning.   Things like my phone charger and my laptop and toiletries.

So many little things…

An annoying text message

I woke up at 8am this morning only to find that Air Canada had text me at 4am to let me know my flight was delayed by 90min.

Well, it’s not the end of the world except for one little thing.

My flight to Amsterdam is actually two flights.   The first one from Vancouver is to Frankfurt and then 1hr 20min later, my second flight leaves to arrive in Amsterdam at 10am.

Well, you see where this is heading, don’t you?

Yup, my connecting flight is not gonna happen.   Turns out the next flight from Frankfurt to Amsterdam isn’t until   4:30 in the afternoon – a whole 7 hours later than my original flight.

So, my 90 minute delay is actually a 7 hour delay.   Instead of arriving in Amsterdam around 11am, I’ll now be arriving in the late afternoon around 6pm.

Well, this trip is off to an auspicious start…

Last minute planning

So, with a 7 hour layover in Frankfurt, I sure as hell didn’t plan to just hang out in the airport all day.

Nope, I needed to quickly figure out what I was going to do with an unexpected afternoon in a city I’ve never visited before.

With still groggy eyes, I opened up my laptop and went to work.

I had to figure out if I could just leave my carryon backpack at the airport and then how to transport into the city.

Both are relatively easy.

The next thing was to search out a free walking tour.   It would be a great way to see the city and they usually start at 11am and only take a couple of hours.   I could land, go through customs, take the 15 minute train into the city, do the walking tour and then grab some lunch before heading back to the airport.

The perfect last second patched together plan…

Yeah, except there’s no walking tour at 11am.   It’s at 2pm.   Wump, wump.

Oh well, gotta roll with the punches.

I quickly looked up what I should see in the city, downloaded an offline map, and marked everything on it.

I’m more prepared than I was a few hours ago but am going into a city pretty blind which, in itself, is kind of adventurous.

So, that’s the plan.

A little bonus day trip to Frankfurt.

Three hours

So, with that all out of the way, my friend Andrew came and picked me up at 9:30 this morning to drive me to the airport.

I had been a good little boy and planned to arrive at the airport 3 hours ahead of my international flight like they tell you to cause, ya know, those lines at checkin and security are soooo long.

Hahaha… jokes on me!

I had already checked in online last night and because I wasn’t checking in any bags this time, I didn’t actually need to go to the checkin counter so didn’t have to stand in line there.

I walked down to airport security expecting a big line.   Yeah, there was literally one person ahead of me.

So, my three hours before my flight is actually 2 plus hours of me sitting here waiting in the lounge.

I will say, however, since I had all that time to me, you did get this bonus blog early as I’m literally typing in sitting in the YVR airport.

Airport security

After many flights over the years, this is the first time I’ve traveling with exclusively carryon baggage.   Last month, I made the decision to buy a new backpack that would be the right size to carry onto the plane as opposed to checking it in.

This decision led to an interesting security screening this morning.

Usually I pack my toiletry bag filled in my checked baggage but, of course, now it’s coming with me on the plane.

Hey, did you know that you can’t take more than 4oz (100ml) of a liquid on a plane?

I did.

But, I also totally forgot about my tube of face wash, my toothpaste, and my deodorant all sitting in my toiletry bag.

Yeah, it was no a usual quick skip through security today…

My bag obviously got flagged and I had to go to the secondary counter where the security guard promptly started going through my bag straight to my toiletry bag.

As she pulled out the offending items, I quickly realized my mistake.

Now, I wasn’t in trouble or anything but it was a bit embarrassing and did lead to me thinking about how was I going to solve this problem.

I had two choices.   I could either checkin the liquids or throw them out.

Ugh.

I mean, checking in the stuff would mean I’d have to leave security, walk all the way to the checkin counter, stand in line, check it in and then go through security again.

Not to mention, I’d have to wait at the carousel when I arrived in Amsterdam just for some damn toiletries.

Kind of defeats the purpose of flying with only carryon baggage.

Throwing them out seemed so wasteful.   I literally had bought them last week, brand new, just for the trip.

She eventually did give me a third option.

We could walk back out of security and I could squeeze out some of the contents until they were within the allowable parameters.

So, that’s what I did.

I seems so silly to have this rule.   I mean, 8 oz of liquid too much but 4oz – no problem.

Whatever.

So, yeah, that was just the first hours of my trip…

Let’s see what lies ahead for me…

Day 1B, my day trip in Frankfurt, coming tomorrow…