You might know about our work and many travels as international consultants. We have been in the air for some 1,500,000 miles. That is for over 3.5 months up in the blue skies, roughly converted into time! That's a LOT, enough to make your 'derrière' almost square. Together we did make a total of 21 round trips to Jakarta, Indonesia, where we have lived and worked for about 3 years, staying for 2 months at a time, 4 x per year. So preparing for our commute to work, from the USA, was quite something. We would fly out from Atlanta on KLM, Royal Dutch Airlines, then partner with Northwest Airlines. Below you will also see our total miles flown...
- Atlanta Airport, waiting for boarding. We would fly over night to Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
- After a nine hour direct flight we were in Amsterdam, at Schiphol airport in The Netherlands.
- Making a long phone call with my Parents...
- Yeah, you see my shopping tote from Escada Company Store (my favorite outlet store).
- Here I am waiting for 40 minutes at Schiphol airport, for being able to check into Mercure Hotel Schiphol Terminal click the link.
- For the 12 hour lay over this is the best one can do. You have a quiet room without any windows, twin beds and a shower and you book it for 12 hours at a time. That makes you able for continuing the longest leg of the journey fresh.
link Indonesia US Locator
- From the orange (USA) to the green (Indonesia) is about 19,000 km or 11,806 miles of flight distance one way (from Atlanta, Georgia).
- Amsterdam, The Netherlands is where the blue arrow is...
- With the yellow marker I've marked off the island of Java where we are heading towards...
- Link of: Compare US to Indonesia with more info about Indonesia.
- Our flight to Jakarta would always be on a KLM Boeing 747-400 or on a Boeing 747 Combi.
- Also called La Grande Dame... check link for photo.
- This is the total of Pieter's WorldPerks miles as of July 17, 2007: 1,262,856
- Pieter did accumulate some more miles than I did as he's been to New Zealand for Campbell's Soup by himself...
- Also he was sent by Campbell's Soup with the People to People Citizen Ambassador Program to China besides his travel within the USA and Canada for Campbell's Soup.
- This is my total of WorldPerks miles as of July 7, 2007: 1,133,546
- Those were the great days of service!
- We of course did both have a Royal Wing Courtesy Card from KLM and often got an upgrade into Business Class.
- Thanks to the Royal Wing Card we could always check in at the Business Class counter and also were allowed the extra carry on piece.
- Can you imagine that at that time we could pack TWO suitcases of 32 kilograms (70 pounds) each...
- So many things happened since then.
- We both are fortunate for having been up in the sky during that time...
- Stay tuned for the next story where we travel from Jakarta to our destination...
Remember, this was going to work; not on vacation!