We made it! We arrived safe and sound in Amsterdam! Since I don’t quite know where to start or exactly how to do this whole “blogging” thing – which is why I think I’ve dragged my feet a little bit — here goes nothing — I’m just going to “talk story” with you…come along for the ride….
We had some flight craziness – the one leaving Seattle was delayed by 1.5 hours so we missed the connecting flight in London and had to take a later one. We were pretty cool about the delay in Seattle and nice to the attendant and when we got up to the ticket counter to board the plane they pulled us aside and said – wait, you’re not going to row 31, we’ve got better seats for you and printed out a pass for Club World (British Airways). When we got to our seats we were blown over. We could sit facing each other in a pod-like seat with a personal fold-out TV, fully reclining seat, footrest, and all the drinks we could handle. When the flight attendant came up to us pre-board and asked if we wanted a drink, “Champagne, OJ, or water” – we were so blown over that we kept thinking they’d ask us to leave the area and just took the OJ! 😉
Here are some pics of the plane and the excellent food – complete with several courses to each one and multiple utensils!!
When we arrived we had to figure out the train station to the hotel transportation and once we figured out which credit/debit cards would work, we were able to board without too much difficulty. We arrived at the hotel at about 1 am and initially had a hard time gaining access and getting our room but it all turned out fine and we were asleep by 3.
We’ve spent the last two days getting acclimated and trying to get over jet lag – we finally slept through the night last night, so I think the worst is over (you know, waking up about once every two hours throughout the night…).
We’ve toured throughout the central party of the city, walking waaaaayyy too much on the first day. Did I mention that I think I’ll be abandoning a pair of shoes here? LOL – they were killing me by the end and I think I’m going sandals all the way!! 😉
The second day we spent working out some transportation snafus. We know that everyone speaks English here very well — and usually multiple languages, so I expected more of the signs and transportation-related notices to be in English. Alas – it’s all Dutch to me! We also toured the Red Light District quite accidentally – stumbling upon our first of many windows with scantily clad women in them. We were there around late afternoon and actually walked around enough to notice the change over from the day shift to the night shift workers. Let me tell you the day shifters were an interesting bunch – the 60+ year old granma really took the cake! She was really working it too — I swear she was closer to 70 than 60. Yipes!
One thing we noticed was the women are like the food vending machines they have everywhere – you walk up, pic what you want, pay for it and move on…
(No pics of the women allowed (unless we paid I guess) so you’ll just have to imagine for yourself. Instead, here is a shot of the vending machines):
Here are some street shots/building shots – the architecture is amazing and is literally all-over the city like this. Beautiful!
So we’re wandering around yesterday and happen to be on this amazing little Dutch street right next to a canal bridge when I suddenly saw the Google car coming right directly for us! We were definitely in the pics because I was trying to take their picture as they drove by! What are the chances? Too cool!
Okay, so I promise to write more frequently in this blog and won’t worry so much about whether or not the writing is concise, funny, or includes insightful and witty commentary. If ya’ll don’t mind, I’m just going to talk stories little while….