Zermatt Switzerland with Noah: Leaving Amsterdam for Home

We arrived in Amsterdam late in the evening on the 1st. We did no sightseeing of Amsterdam. We went directly to our hotel, had a bit to eat in the hotel bar and went immediately to bed. The next morning, we took the hotel shuttle directly to the airport. Here's another story for you...

At some point during our travels, the handle on my large luggage bag broke. It wasn't a clean and easy break. This is a large rolling bag with an extending handle made of two aluminum bars. Only one of the bars broke and it left a jagged piece of metal and the other side of the handle unable to slide back into its recess space. Troy and I tried to break it off or hammer it back in, but nothing we did worked. So we took the bag with us and would let the airline attendants decide what to do.

The international airport for Amsterdam that morning was maxed out with people. The lines to get through security looped from one large waiting room to another and down a long hallway and back. It took forever just to get to the security checkpoint. Once there, I had to get my broken handled bag through security. No problem other than Amsterdam had started using automated bag screening bins. You have to walk up to a baggage door, put your bags in the container, the container door closes over your bag and takes it away through screening and to the airplane. With my broken handle not being able to slide back into place, the container door couldn't shut. So I had to go to special bag handling. This took forever again but I finally got someone to take the bag (they ended up cutting off the jagged piece and the other handle strut, too - I didn't care).

The direct flight from Amsterdam to Atlanta was uneventful. Getting through customs at the Atlanta airport was uneventful (although Momma always feels she has to declare something and Troy and I are always fearful that she'll pull out an apple or something that will cost us $500 or more). Another amazing trip to Europe was over. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves with our one night in Rome, our four days in Venice, our three days in Zermatt and all of our train adventures. We do plan on returning to Europe again at the end of 2018 for our now traditional fly over on Christmas Day and return to the United States on January second. Stay tuned to see which cities we tour on that trip. Happy New Year!