Welcome (back) to Singapore!

Yesterday we finally arrived. Actually, Alex and I had already been to Singapore for a few hours as a stopover to Bali. At that time we already bought these two magnets, like for all the countries we have visited. That was a bit cheating back then, but now we can look at them when we come home and think back to a hopefully beautiful time here.

Now about the flight:

We started our journey on Monday afternoon and my dearest friend drove Jakob and me to the airport. There we met my mother and checked in our luggage. The nice lady at the counter asked us how long we wanted to stay. 'My mother 14 days and me three months.' She asked with big eyes, 'And the little one stays alone there?' I could see from her shocked face that she was serious about her question. 'Of course not......!' She pointed out to me that I was only allowed to stay for 30 days, which was shown on the pop-up on her screen. Even after a phone call, she stuck to this statement and wished us good luck.

Jakob's pretzel in the backpack caused a brief stir when it went through the scanner, but then we were already at the gate and it started. In 50 minutes to Amsterdam. The lady next to me was gently stroked on the back by Jakob when she leaned forward. The man next to my mother also leaned forward several times, but to glower at Jakob and me and then, as soon as the seatbelt signs were turned off, to jump up and run away. We didn't see him again...

When we arrived in Amsterdam, we had to go through passport control. It shouldn't be a problem. We thought. But then the officer asked me somewhat mumblingly if I had food for Jakob with me. And I started listing all the snacks. But apparently I misunderstood him. He had asked me for permission from the father to leave the country alone with Jakob. Uhhh?! So we were asked to step aside by another border officer and I was asked how I could prove without a document that I was not kidnapping the child. So... how do you do that? Call Alex, in the middle of the night. Luckily, he answered the phone and spoke to the officer. It was also good that I had a copy of his passport and a printout of our cruise together. The officer believed us, turned a blind eye, reminded us that we would definitely need the right documents next time, and let us go. For a moment, I thought our journey was over here...

In the airplane, the three of us shared a row of three seats with a corpulent lady who first took a photo of us, which she probably sent to her girlfriends to show how bad she had it. But it became immediately clear that we all had it bad when Jakob became more active and the space became even tighter. After about two hours, the flight attendant came and asked the lady to come with her to sit in one of the vacant seats in another area. So now we had a free seat between us, which made eating and sleeping much more relaxed. Jakob was getting fussier. It wasn't until 12:30 a.m. that the lights were turned off and the little man could finally sleep. He slept for a full eight hours with short interruptions. He was really the sweetest baby and handled the flight so well. Mummy is very very proud.

So it's not always a small child that makes the flight stressful, but often the external circumstances.

Here are some impressions:

On the right next to us, the lady opened the overhead compartment at least ten times during the night. The lady in front, completely hidden under a blanket, had her screen on all night. The man in front of my mother pushed his empty beer cans back to us. The man in front of me just couldn't sit still. The man behind me harassed both me and my mother with his bare feet (at some point I felt them on my ankle bareh!). And finally, the touch screens unfortunately caused constant unwanted light when you moved incorrectly.

All in all, the flight was really okay and an excited dad welcomed us with a big smile, hugged us tightly, kissed me naughtily and safely brought us to the apartment.