What a busy airport.
Just landed and got into the Schengen part of the airport, the one I usually see in my trips to Amsterdam. Always get impressed with the size of the atrium, really impressive with all the shops and restaurants around it.
I check the transfer panels and search for my flight. It is going to be a long stay around the airport, so will have some time to get to know a bit of it.
My next gate is after passport control, I am in doubt if should I stay here and go to the lounge or if to look for a lounge after passport control. Check the maps, that is usually helpful. Indeed, seems to exist 2 more lounges after passport control, so decision simple, let's go through passport control.
Another first time thing for me, a fully automated passport control station, that seems nice. I must confess that although being a tech oriented person, I am always impressed with the analogy to digital interaction, and this process to validate passport without human intervention is simply amazing. The sheer fact that they have nobody manning the station says it all. A high security topic accepts this level of automation, the number of false positives must be extremely low. Just reminds me of the article I read on the previous flight about big data. Also did not have any hassle, the system recognised passport, I took glasses off to look like the picture, smiled to some invisible camera that should be located somewhere around the information screen and that was all. Passport cleared and onto next non-Schengen area of the airport.
Wow, amazed, I never expected the non-Schengen part of the airport to be bigger and with more activity that the Schengen part. I was in for a real surprise. This looked like a living thriving organism. People by the hundreds or thousands moving along the airport either in the direction of the gates, towards passport control, looking for restrooms, mothers looking for spots to change their babies, kids looking at the new gadgets at the electronic store. Well, at the gadgets not only kids, quite a few grown-ups as well.
I myself went to the electronic store with the excuse of a power adapter for the US. Found it, looked at the tablets, the toys, and was looking to by some earplugs. Forgot to pack the earplugs, and would like to listen to the pad on the flight without bothering the neighbours in the cabin, but instead found a pair of headphones with noise cancellation feature. Tried them on, really could feel a lot of noise being filtered. Let's plug this to the phone and give a try. Nice' the sound was clear. Check all buttons on the headset, oops, that one pops batteries out, good to know, need to buy batteries as well. A power on switch? What does this do? Amplify the sound? Wow, it activates the electronics to do the noise reduction thingy, Suddenly I could not ear a sound of what was going around in the thriving busy noisy store. It's a must buy Sony mdr-nc200d. It even comes with a nice traveling bag to keep them protected as well as the adapter for planes with the double jack and also the needed batteries. All in one nice meet package.
Having taken care of this I continue the search for the lounge.
The lounge for sky team is under the KLM logo, with the grandiose name of Crown Lounge. It is simple huge. Check for WiFi, yes they have it, check for password... Not very tight security! They openly advertise the algorithm for password generating: KLMDDMMYY. Nice to know. If I pass by next time, even without lounge access, I will be able to hop onto the WiFi network.
Great I installed Skype on my wife's tablet, let's try the WiFi and make a Skype video call. Offline, need to tell my wife to turn on her tablet. Good thing we at home have a Skype phone with landline. I can call via the net the fixed Skype line, have no costs and tell her to switch on the tablet. It works perfectly, nice buy the Skype dual phone. Then the video call also perfect. Nice to see my daughter, it allows to reduce the homesickness.
Let's rest a bit now until the next flight.
Just landed and got into the Schengen part of the airport, the one I usually see in my trips to Amsterdam. Always get impressed with the size of the atrium, really impressive with all the shops and restaurants around it.
I check the transfer panels and search for my flight. It is going to be a long stay around the airport, so will have some time to get to know a bit of it.
My next gate is after passport control, I am in doubt if should I stay here and go to the lounge or if to look for a lounge after passport control. Check the maps, that is usually helpful. Indeed, seems to exist 2 more lounges after passport control, so decision simple, let's go through passport control.
Another first time thing for me, a fully automated passport control station, that seems nice. I must confess that although being a tech oriented person, I am always impressed with the analogy to digital interaction, and this process to validate passport without human intervention is simply amazing. The sheer fact that they have nobody manning the station says it all. A high security topic accepts this level of automation, the number of false positives must be extremely low. Just reminds me of the article I read on the previous flight about big data. Also did not have any hassle, the system recognised passport, I took glasses off to look like the picture, smiled to some invisible camera that should be located somewhere around the information screen and that was all. Passport cleared and onto next non-Schengen area of the airport.
Wow, amazed, I never expected the non-Schengen part of the airport to be bigger and with more activity that the Schengen part. I was in for a real surprise. This looked like a living thriving organism. People by the hundreds or thousands moving along the airport either in the direction of the gates, towards passport control, looking for restrooms, mothers looking for spots to change their babies, kids looking at the new gadgets at the electronic store. Well, at the gadgets not only kids, quite a few grown-ups as well.
I myself went to the electronic store with the excuse of a power adapter for the US. Found it, looked at the tablets, the toys, and was looking to by some earplugs. Forgot to pack the earplugs, and would like to listen to the pad on the flight without bothering the neighbours in the cabin, but instead found a pair of headphones with noise cancellation feature. Tried them on, really could feel a lot of noise being filtered. Let's plug this to the phone and give a try. Nice' the sound was clear. Check all buttons on the headset, oops, that one pops batteries out, good to know, need to buy batteries as well. A power on switch? What does this do? Amplify the sound? Wow, it activates the electronics to do the noise reduction thingy, Suddenly I could not ear a sound of what was going around in the thriving busy noisy store. It's a must buy Sony mdr-nc200d. It even comes with a nice traveling bag to keep them protected as well as the adapter for planes with the double jack and also the needed batteries. All in one nice meet package.
Having taken care of this I continue the search for the lounge.
The lounge for sky team is under the KLM logo, with the grandiose name of Crown Lounge. It is simple huge. Check for WiFi, yes they have it, check for password... Not very tight security! They openly advertise the algorithm for password generating: KLMDDMMYY. Nice to know. If I pass by next time, even without lounge access, I will be able to hop onto the WiFi network.
Great I installed Skype on my wife's tablet, let's try the WiFi and make a Skype video call. Offline, need to tell my wife to turn on her tablet. Good thing we at home have a Skype phone with landline. I can call via the net the fixed Skype line, have no costs and tell her to switch on the tablet. It works perfectly, nice buy the Skype dual phone. Then the video call also perfect. Nice to see my daughter, it allows to reduce the homesickness.
Let's rest a bit now until the next flight.
