I drive there from my home in the southern Netherlands, near Maastricht, for my interview at 11. I get there at 10 and park in a huge lot, nearly empty. From my film can I dump out all the eligible euro muntjes (coins) that I have: 90 eurocents. That buys me thirty minutes. I dump the change in the dispenser, push the green button, wait for the slip to print, and set it atop the dashboard of my VW Polo.

Having driven two and a half hours to get to Amsterdam, I need to take a leak. I go to the Amstel train station, but I see no toilet. I ask the girl in the food court. None, she says, in the whole station. But there will be, she says. Remodeling, she says.

I didn’t ask her where she goes to pee. Instead: But isn’t a rest room job one? She shrugs. I walk outside.

You should have seen me, all decked out in my interview suit, gold tie, leather portfolio, crouching down and taking a leak next to a pile of sand in the fietsenstalling place — dozens of bicycles all around this pile of sand. I can see people’s heads bobbing by on the sidewalk, out in the sun. I’m in the shade, peeing into a pile of sand.

Back at the food court, the cup of coffee and the Wall Street Journal Europe take me to 10:40. I’m seven minutes over my parking, but I figure no problem, because why ticket a car in an oceanic lot with room to spare?

I note the faces. Dutch faces, and African, and Asian, and Muslim-women-wrapped-up faces. Plenty of young people. Two young, hulky guys, one black the other white, walk by the food court, wearing identical T-shirts: “To protect and to serve,” the shirts say, in English. They meet up with other young men wearing the same T-shirts.

I round the corner into the lot; it’s 10:49. A man from the stadstoezicht has just put a clamp on my wheel. I ask him, what’s 16 minutes in an empty lot? Why are you doing this to me? I open the car and show him the film can with nothing but two cent and penny euro coins. I wanted to pay, I say. See? Why are you doing this to me? I give 10 minutes, he says.

I walk into my interview. Not five minutes in, the man says the company’s in big trouble and probably won’t be able to hire, but he’s glad to meet me anyway. I could have burned a bridge, but I held back.

I walk out and pay 70 euros to get the clamp off. Just another day in the life of an American in Europe.

But luckily for a sufferer, there are ways to combat and destroy this phobia, all depending on your exact condition. There are certain ways to allow yourself to fly on planes, without the use of expensive therapies or medicines

Before you start reading you should be sure that your fear of flying isn’t due to another phobia. Many people suffer from fear of flight due to other conditions such as claustrophobia or vertio. If this is the case then you should work on combating this fear, the root cause, rather then the symptom of fear of flying.

The first thing to do is research. Many people who have a fear of flying have a lack of trust in the airplanes themselves, or new threats such as terrorism or hijacking. So research is one of the main medicines you can use to combat the phobia. Here is a list of things to research that might alleviate your concern:

Number of air hours pilots must have before pilots are allowed to fly commercial airplanes.
The kind of training a pilot must go through.
The requirements for any flight attendances: Emergency procedures, taking care of passengers etc etc.
The performance record of the plane you are planning on flying on.
What safety mechanisms does the plane have built in
How many crashes have there been versus the number of uneventful flights.
How many terrorist events have there been over the past year, five years?

If you do enough research (and remember not to believe everything found on the Internet) then you should find enough information to sooth any worries.

The next thing you can do is during the flight sooth yourself. Wear comfortable clothes, sturdy shoes, a small pillow and try talking to the other passengers on employees. If you are still not at ease, take a portable music play and some headphone with your favorite calming music. Even if you don’t have a music player take some headphones, since many airplanes have activities which require the use of these, which to use you would otherwise need to buy them, which can be expensive.

Bring anything that will help keep your mind off the flight: Music, games books anything to make you forget that you are on a plane and is hand held.

It is also important to bring headphones. If you have a portable music player, then choose your favorite soothing, relaxing songs and let your mind drift away from the fact that you are on a flight. If you do not have a music player, bring the headphones anyway. If your airline offers in-flight movies, TV shows, games, or any other services of that sort, they will often not include headphones and you may have to pay for them.

If none of those ideas would keep you amused enough to overcome your anxiety, then bring a good book. Bring whatever you need in order to distract yourself from the flight.

Another none medicinal method is joining a support group for fear of flight sufferers. these clinics are designed to help relax and clam you down and reassure you that everything will go fine with any flight you may take. This has the added benefit of not being alone while you are working through your fear, since this phobia of fear of flight is not uncommon. Be sure to look up any clinics that might be in your area.

The main thing you should do is ask yourself what scares you about flying, and then take steps to conquer this fer, with either research or a support group. Welcome any methods with open arms since flying is a convenient way to travel all round the world and missing out due to a fear is a shame. Be sure to try and distract yourself while traveling in the air and you should soon be at your holiday destination ready to have a great time!

This Article is from international-travel-guides.co.uk

On November 2 of that year, my wife, Cathy, and I drove from Montgomery, Alabama to the Sipsey Wilderness, a part of Bankhead National Forest in northwestern Alabama. Sipsey being large (25,000 plus acres), in the middle of nowhere, and it being a Wednesday, we didn’t expect to see anyone.

That night, lying in our tent listening to the peaceful gurgling of the Sipsey River, three miles from the nearest road, I was surprised to hear a voice echoing in the hollow. It was that of a man, speaking Mexican Spanish. He couldn’t have been more than a hundred meters from us. Later, I heard thumping music, which quickly died down.

I couldn’t imagine what Mexicans would be doing in the middle of that wilderness. My first impression was that they were illegal migrant workers. But what had drawn them to that poor corner of Alabama, much less those deep woods? After a while, I started to doubt I’d heard anything at all. “It was De Soto’s ghost,” I joked to Cathy, nervously.

The next day, brilliant and crisp, we saw no trace of anyone as we explored the hollow. Sipsey is a beautiful piece of wilderness. Freshwater mollusks thrive in the clean waters of the river, and the valley is so rugged that large patches of it were never logged. We admired huge chestnut oaks and beeches over a century old. Everywhere, color: the blue sky; the golden, red and orange leaves; the copper river, dappled with sun and shade. (Photo above shows the river as it looked that day.)

That night, camped on the plateau in the middle of the forest, I noted in my diary: “I just heard a big animal breathing in the distance. It could have been a man. I woke Cathy up, but the wind blew and when it died down you couldn’t hear the breathing anymore.”

Was it a man? Were we in danger? Time notes:

In the fall, when scores of Mexican workers arrive to harvest and process the pot, shoot-outs occur between law-enforcement agents and camouflage-clad growers toting AK-47s. Sometimes the pot pirates mistake innocent tourists for thieves or cops. … “If you are a hunter, a fisherman or a backpacker, it can be dangerous,” says Michael Delaney, who oversees marijuana cases for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Northern California.

Did Cathy and I nearly cross paths with pot growers? The world may never know. But after reading the article in Time, I think we probably did.

The Forest Service needs to look into Bankhead. If pot pirates were there nine years ago, there’s every reason to think they’re still there today.