Tip About Airline Flights

On my recent trip from Amsterdam to Boston to Iowa to Amsterdam, I needed to move my last set of flights forward a day because of an important meeting. I called up American Airlines, and because my Boston to Iowa trip had been delayed, AA didn't charge any money to change my flight to Amsterdam.

If you ever need to reschedule flights, AA will be very accommodating if you've had previous delays. This is probably true for other airlines. I hope someone finds this tip as useful as I did.

Border Issues

If you think the U.S. has border issues, imagine what the Netherlands and Belgium have to go through in Baarle-Nassau (google maps link).



In other news, southern towns in the Netherlands are having trouble with the tourist influx caused by the cannabis shops. The Dutch have a very tolerant view of drugs, but no tolerance for violence. An excerpt from Cop in the Hood:

I saw a police officer give an addict back his heroin when the addict was released after a night in jail for some petty crime. I expressed my amazement to the officer that he could give illegal drugs back to a criminal. He explained to me that as soon as the man ran out of heroin, he would break into a car to get money to buy his next hit. It made no sense to the police officer to hasten the addict’s next criminal act by taking away his drugs. I asked about sending the wrong message. The police officer said his message was stop breaking into cars.