Me being me, I started the 8th of March with sending a “Happy International Women’s Day” e-card to anyone I have in my Whatsapp account. In short, to a lot, a lot of women, and some men.
Calling out ‘Ladies, Happy International Women’s Day’ to the flight attendants, to the ground crew checking me in, to the lady guarding the business class check in at Schiphol (and no, I did not have a business class ticket, but was allowed to check in at those desks nevertheless), to the busdriver, and the fellow airplane or bus passengers, to the women waiting for the bus, to basically all and sundry, made me heaps of new friends. Not just on Schiphol, on JFK, on the busses, at the bus stops, but also in the line at the check out of the supermarket. Why would you not greet each and every women on this day? Making people smile is so very easy. It may not come as a surprise that people are then more pleasant and accomodating (business class incheck) to you.
What surprised me was that my flight at 8:55am was fairly empty. When booking an upgrade (comfort seat) a few week prior, I had been under the impression that almost no seats were available, but the reality was what this image shows you. No one next to me in the aisle seat was a welcome luxury. Happy International Women’s Day to me indeed!
Arriving at JFK went smooth enough. Although my Global Entry identity was not recognised by the machine, the line at the booth for ‘Crew’ or ‘Diplomats’ was not too long. Exiting terminal 4 I found ‘my driver’ Isak waiting for me to get me smoothly to my studio apartment. Here, there was the getting-familiar-with-the-internet-log-on, the set-up of the TV (really? I don’t care much for it and don’t have time), how the heating worked, and other domestic tribbles.
The OMNY card (reduced fare as I am an ‘elderly woman’) was easy to add money to. Basically, it works like putting money on you ‘OV-Chipkaart’: hold the card to the reader of the OMNY machine, until the reader recognises the card. Put the card in your pocket. On the screen tap on adding money and select your preference ($17 for a 7day card for me, obviously), put your credit card in the slot for that card, type in your pincode, and you are done. The money is added to your card. After which I walked over to the bus stop to get to 45th Street for my UN Grounds pass for 2025, and had a lovely conversation with all the women waiting there.
The bus took a while (as it has on average every two streetblocks a stop) but I did arrive to the ID and Pass office where there was absolutely NO line. That meant a minimal wait while my papers were checked and my pass was printed and off I went to get a fast select bus to 117th street for my grocery shopping at Aldi. Regretfully, there my luck no longer held, as it was incredible busy in the supermarket. No real surprise perhaps on a Saturday afternoon, but still an exercise in patience. On the other hand, it did give me lovely conversations with the other shoppers in line and even the service of a kind
gentleman who left his wife with her cart in the line in front of me to search for some items I had not been able to locate in the Saturday afternoon crowd.
Being in no rush myself, I let two people with only two items each ahead of me, as that is what you do if your shopping cart is overflowing with items. Getting the three Aldi grocery bags (souvernir for shopping back home) to the curb to order an Uber was not without its challenges either as the Aldi supermarket carts were blocked from going outside the store on the 1st floor of the building. I had to find a ‘Costco shopping cart’ to get my stuff down and on the street. But it worked and an Aldi employee oversaw my cart with bags while I, like other Aldi shoppers with same problem, went in search of a Costco cart.
While getting to my uber driver the traffic controller of the shopping center started to give my driver a hard time, which got me really annoyed. I can’t walk properly, which the traffic controller had observed when I arrived with my Costco cart and had to lift my bags to the curb. Therefore it stood to reason that the Uber driver needed to park close to me to help me get my bags, besides ME, into his car.
Screaming at the traffic controller of Costco in Dutch that “I can’t walk very well as you have observed” shut the traffic controller up real quick. Dutch is such a wonderful language to get foreigners (probably not Germans, I pressume) in line, pronto. I bet he would even have been shocked into the same silence, if I had screamed ‘het weer is echt geweldig prachtig vandaag’. The ‘Gs’ really do it, as we all know.
In general, I am a reasonably pleasant, friendly person, to strangers especially. However, that changes in an instant if you are not willing to be a bit accomodating to the fact that I’m a handicapped person who has great trouble walking nowadays. Then, I change in an instant to the goddess of wrath that Artemis in Greek mythology is. Afterall, my parents gave me that name for a reason.
On the other hand, I am willing to go the extra mile for complete strangers, whoever you are. Which made me address a mistake on Google Maps. Here I changed the position of the M15 bus stop in front of the UN to the spot very near the NGO delegates entrance, where the bus stop actually is: across the corner of 45th and 1e Avenue. An easy service to perform, so why not?
It is fun to be your ‘one stop, full service, travel agent’.
