13NOV2024 - Travel to Amsterdam

In some ways waiting for this trip to happen was not very enjoyable - it almost felt like a task that had to be done before life progresses again. But here we are, and I can enjoy this trip tangibly now.

The day started off with Tuesday morning prayers at Alice (redacted) and Mitch's (redacted) for morning prayers, followed by packing the remainder 80% of my luggage which took quite less than 2 hours. Justin (redacted) was dropping me off at the airport at 2pm, which was very kind of him!

After checking (thrice) that I had my ESTA on all my devices to transit the Los Angeles airport and that there were books and audiobooks that I would scarcely interact with on my flight I resigned to tidying my room.

Wellington put on a sunny and summery countenance seeing me out, and the rest of the flight up to Auckland had nice views of the mountain ranges and ocean below; Mt Taranaki was visible today, a huge symmetrical pimple in the land, skirted by some puffy cloud. New Zealand is _really_ beautiful.

I had two long flights, from Auckland to Los Angeles, and then from Los Angeles to Amsterdam - both flew into the night, and landed in the morning of the destination. The flight to LA was about 11 hours long and quite empty - I was offered a row of seats by the window which I happily took, and we were also offered double portion dinners and breakfast which I couldn't bring myself to accept. I saw the United States for the first time - California looked as sunny and arid as I have read and imagined, and the desert mountains stretched into the fuzzy horizon.

I had to transfer my baggage for the next flight, and had to declare that I had all of $25 cold hard cash on my person, and was soon at the next gate. There were heaps of people on the flight to Amsterdam, and as we waited for the gate to open for boarding I gave my seat to an elderly indian lady who, I was surprised to learn later, had her seat booked next to mine on the flight.

Emsa (redacted) and her husband Navin (redacted) were doing a month-long holiday going to Amsterdam, Thailand, and India. The funny thing was she wanted to have the window seat, and her husband wanted the aisle seat, and it was thus booked, with me sitting between them - they wouldn't have it any other way. They have been living in Los Angeles for a good number of years, and in the states for much longer, but I wouldn't have guessed, for their accent was strong as ever, and they still often exchanged questions and quips in Hindi or Punjabi. She was an electrical engineer and later a computer applications developer ( in COBOL!) while he was an electrical and electronics engineer. They have both retired for a number of years now.

It turns out that Emsa's family had to escape the Jammu region in the 1940s during the First Kashmir War. She scrolled the map on the screen in front of her to the northwest corner of India, at the foot of the Himalayan range, describing how whole villages of people had to up and leave everything overnight, and how her mother, pregnant with her older brother, escaped Lahore to Amritsar while her father risked earning some income in his relatively less risky job in the tumultuous region near Gujranwala for a few months. Lahore is now part of Pakistan, and the Pakistan-India border now bisects the 50kms between Lahore and Amritsar.

"My mother climbed atop the roof in Amritsar and looked at the fire all around - everything was burning - and fainted," she added for dramatic effect, pausing and looking at me. I settled for pursing my lips and nodding, maintaining eye contact. "She wondered the entire time if she would ever see my father again, but she did. It was a miracle, people were being beheaded in tents where they lay, in trains where they rode. Our president should not have conceded Kashmir, you know, it was a beautiful valley, with lakes and mountains, and to this day the inhabitants have to defend its beauty. I've never been there though, my brother went there to study, in Jammu. He told me about it."

Pakistan was fearful that the Maharaja of the princely states (kind of like a client king of British India states) of Kashmir and Jammu - which had a majority muslim population - would accede to India during the Partition of British India, when the grant of independence suddenly materialised in 1947. The princely states were provided with an Instrument of Accession (legal doc) to choose between the new dominions of India or Pakistan, and when Tribal Islamic forces joined arms with Pakistani military to attack and occupy parts of the Jammu and Kashmir states the Maharaja was forced to accede to the dominion of India for Indian military aid. The outcome of this was the majority of Jammu and Kashmir states belonged to India but I suppose later negotiations or further conflicts resulted in more of Jammu and Kashmir regions becoming under possession of Pakistan.

It was a very pleasant chat with my neighbours and despite a lot less sleep than the last flight, time went by quite quickly and we were soon in Amsterdam.

It was so good to see the very excellent Samuel (redacted) again! He took part of the day off to receive me at the airport and have coffee. They also served flat whites here; it was a gargantuan cup but very decent tasting; Samuel had high standards for coffee, and brought along a pack of stroopwafels.

We took the metro from Schiphol to Amsterdam Centraal, and a tram from Centraal to IJburg (Eye-berg), where Samuel lived. He began his day at work from home, while I settled myself in, drinking tea and taking in the surrounding view of brick road, moss-topped buildings, canals, brick-textured apartments, and cyclists. It wasn't half bad for an early winter's day.

It was really great again when the top-dawg Miriam (redacted) soon returned from a walk with one-year-old cuteness-overload Max (redacted). Miriam took me for a geez around Amsterdam city - we saw a bar in a windmill, the central climbing centre, central library, some canals, fancy footbridges, little market.

Amsterdam was very beautiful et cetera. Backfill later.