Nearly an hour-and-a-half to get through passport control at Schiphol Airport. The layout of the…read moreairport is incredibly confusing: At pretty much any other modern airport, arriving international passengers are directed straight to immigration, but at Schiphol, they're set free to wander the terminal, shop at duty-free, have a meal, stop at the business class lounge -- whatever. It's chaotic. Then there's the gridlocked passport section itself, with biometric gates only for EU countries, so e-passports from the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, etc., get lumped in with all the rest -- unlike at most airports. With only three windows open, it doesn't help that the officials are so darn chatty, either.
The place looks rundown, with lots of strange noises akin to someone rolling giant bowling balls upstairs. The climate control is terrible, too. (That might be connected to the weird noises.) Schiphol actually makes Los Angeles International Airport seem not so shambolic -- that's how bad it is.