Sojourn in South Africa: Destination One: Amsterdam, NL

So I start this journey not where my journey was actually supposed to begin, but in a place that’s actually very connected to where I will be studying abroad this year: Holland, also known as the Netherlands. The Dutch are connected to South Africa since it was the Dutch East India Company that contained the first Europeans to become settlers by establishing a trading post in the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. Not too long from then the trading post became south Africa's first colony and the rest is history. In high school I was lucky enough to be a participant in this program through my school in which we did an exchange with our “sister school” in the Netherlands called "Dalton Den Haag". It was so startling to finally see the faces of this group of Dutch students- it was a bit like looking into a parallel universe. However, after the initial weirdness subsided it became clear that for a first view of this new culture and alternate life, I could not have had a better or more perfect experience. But enough with this nostalgia: the point I want to get to is that the friends I made on this program are so near and dear to my heart that on my way to this great new journey I couldn’t imagine not passing through Amsterdam to spend time with them given the chance. In the end the trip wound out being so creepily flawless that I’m still in awe.

Last Wednesday, the day of my flight, I was sitting in bed watching the snow pour from the sky just knowing that my evening flight to Amsterdam would be canceled and I would miss out on this amazing day trip that I had planned on for months. However, as the time approached, hour-by-hour, there were no delays for JFK (where I was flying out of), unlike LaGuardia which was already about an hour and a half behind schedule by 9am. On my way to the JFK I even called the airline in disbelief that I hadn’t heard about my cancellation yet, but in the middle of this call was interrupted by a text from my new friend who is also studying in South Africa for the semester, saying “Flight is still on time yayy”. It seemed she was right: we wound up taxiing for an hour while a big scary-looking machine de-iced our plane, but we were assured that we would make up the time en route and only arrive 5 – 10 minutes late, max. It wasn’t until I got to Amsterdam that I realized just how lucky I was - not just kind of lucky, but crazily, scarily lucky. The roommates of the Dutch friend I was staying with, who also were part of the exchange in high school, were scheduled to see A-track, half of the DJ-duo of that song “Barbara Streisand” that night, but had just found out that the concert was canceled because his flight could not make it out of NY. I don’t think I’ve heard the word “conquer” (a Dutch curse word) thrown around so many times in a row. As roommates and girlfriends came back to the apartment and heard the bad news it was like “Are you serious?!! Conquer! Conquer! Conquer! [some words I don’t understand] Conquer! Conquer!” Although they eventually got over it and we all had a marvelous night on Leidenstraat (or something like that?) in the city center, the situation was the first indication that I was exactly where I was supposed to be at that moment in time; for later, the friend with whom I stayed who also happens to be obsessed with everything plane-related, told me that every single flight through Amsterdam to Johannesburg after mine was delayed or canceled. That means that if I hadn't scheduled this trip through Amsterdam, I would've been one of the five other people who missed a whole day of South Africa due to flight delays. Fate was most definitely on my side.