The trip back

Hey,

To give you all a chance to read my previous blog, I'm only writing about the trip back to Zurich now. The flight itself wasn't as eventful as the previous, but New Year's Eve was.

For the first time ever, I didn't celebrate NYE with family. Not my own, at least. As I was leaving from Schiphol the next day, I decided to have my girlfriend over for Christmas and then I would celebrate NYE with her and her family. One thing I feel obliged to say:

THE DUTCH ARE CRAZY WHEN IT COMES TO FIREWORKS !!

Apparently, it's a big tradition there to go outside at midnight and congratulate neighbours, friends etc. As an extra bonus, people all around start aiming their own fireworks to the skies. A tradition, I'm not really accustomed to, I must say. In our family, NYE is mostly indoors and at midnight we can hear some fireworks in the distance, but that's about it.
This time, I couldn't see more than 5 meters in the street at times, because of the smoke. There were fireworks EVERYWHERE !! I even had one accidentally thrown right at me, and I'm pretty convinced I broke Usain Bolt's record right there.

Not just small bangers. A lot of these big boys were going places that night.

I'm not sure anymore when I heard it exactly, as my mind was just blown, but the Dutch combined have bought fireworks with a total value of about 65 million euros. I thought we were still in economic crisis (emphasis on the past tense) but now, that just might be resolved by the Dutch.

The next morning, last night's mood was far gone when you looked outside, even though there were still small fireworks popping and (drunk) people celebrating here and there. The streets were as dirty as can be, filled with used fire-crackers, fireworks-boxes, even burnt Christmas trees. And it was also the day where I had to leave my girlfriend again, most probably for an entire month this time.

It was hard, after having spent about half my holidays with her, to leave her at the security check-in, but the show must go on, I suppose. And even though I nearly shed a tear saying goodbye, these 800-ish km don't mean we aren't connecting anymore.


The flight then. This time, no delays !! Not a single minute actually, which I noticed by coincidentally watching my watch during take-off. Even better, we landed about 15 minutes ahead of schedule.
But unfortunately, I didn't get the front-row seat this time, even though I did most just like last time. I did, however, make some pictures during flight and a video during landing.

Leaving behind a sunny Schiphol Airport.

 Being approached by a converging A320-like aircraft.

Small ice crystals appearing on the window during descent, rapidly increasing in size and number.

The descent through the clouds and landing on runway 14 at Zurich Airport (LSZH; ZRH)

Once arrived, I went to the apartment, installed myself and prepared for the coming days. I've been pretty nervous actually. Even though BRT 2 went pretty good, I was convinced I had done really bad on my AN2-exam. Fortunately though, I underestimated my capabilities BY FAR and apparently got a 90% pass-mark. I'm either a lucky guesser or I knew the subject better than I thought.

But somehow, it's becoming a habit with this teacher. Today, we had the LAW-exam, and I wasn't too sure about my result either, but then he said everyone would pass the exam, if they didn't change anything anymore. I, however, was just in the progress of changing things, so here's hoping it gets me a better instead of worse result.

Next exam to come up is Area Control in the simulator. After 8 exercises, we have to prove our skills next Friday. According to the lead instructor, it should be harder to fail than to pass, but there is a certain standard expected of course.

That's about it for now. Talk to you all in my next blog. :)