Heathrow

Unfortunately BA were the cheapest when I booked my flights to London for the weekend to meet S on her return from New Zealand. So I was forced to endure Terminal 5 yet again.

It started the way it always does -- with the self check-in machine throwing up an error and informing me to seek assistance. There was the usual gaggle of ground staff engrossed in a private conversation so I left them to it and headed straight for the assistance check-in counter since there was surprisingly no queue. The woman who assisted me had the patented arrogance and irritation common to most BA staff and with what appeared to be a great effort on her part I soon had my boarding pass and was heading towards the ever-popular customs.

Being a Sunday afternoon the queues were quite light however as is now required I removed my laptop from my backpack, my coat, my scarf, my belt and my shoes and placed them all in trays to be x-rayed. Somehow I still managed to set off the metal detector so I was subjected to the standard pat-down without event. I went to collect my stuff and noted the sign stating 'Do not remove trays', so I grabbed all my stuff and managed to make it to the nearby tables, which had a sign on the top which read 'Please return trays to conveyor'... sigh.

After I had re-assembled myself I headed downstairs to the 4th floor (!) for the departure gates. Fortunately the BA assistant had written down my gate number so I could go straight there to chill-out with my book. Unfortunately she had only written down the number 7, and not specified whether it was 'A', 'B', or 'C', so I wandered around until I found a comfortable couch in front of one the departure screens and passed the time reading. Once it came up I went to the gate and boarded half an hour later without any further problems. The flight was only a third full so I think that played a large part in that.

Arriving back in Amsterdam was painless as always, I was home within 40 minutes.

Schiphol Airport

Schiphol airport is so good. It's huge but well sign-posted and there are time indicators on the signs so that you know how long you'll need to leave to get to your gate. There's lots of room everywhere and there aren't the normal queue bottlenecks that seem to plague other airports especially at passport control or customs.

But the one cool thing I noticed this time is that you can go to the Rijksmuseum while at the airport! It's on the Holland Boulevard which is behind passport control and between the E and F Piers. This mini-museum has ten works by Golden Age Dutch masters from the Rijksmuseum's collection and it changes a number of times each year. Well worth a visit if you've got a little extra time while waiting for your flight.