Travels with Owen

Even more than most European cities, Rotterdam has more modern architecture because so many of its beautiful old buildings were destroyed during WWII.  Instead, it has really fun modern structures.

I bought extra for friends.  They ship to the US if you want to try this special chocolate.  https://www.chocolatesvanhecke.be/shop/

The workshop was educational and fun.  But the best part was trying lots of chocolate, and enjoying a glass of prosecco as a palette cleanser.

Afterwards we had the option of spending the afternoon in Ghent but we decided to rest up. 

The Delta works is an impressive flood control program that protects the Netherlands coastline from flooding. It is a model for other countries.

A rubber mat was used in construction of the pylon bridge solution

They have an excellent video describing the installation.  For more details, or if you can’t visit in person, https://www.holland.com/global/tourism/getting-around/interests/land-of-water/delta-works

We had a fun tour of the wheelhouse with captain Rolf.  In the background is a huge collection of rubber ducks and frogs collected by Captain Rolf and the other ship’s captain. 

Fortunately I had planned ahead and booked us a canal cruise.  We were still exhausted so we took a cab to the wharf.  We arrived too early for our cruise so we wandered around the city in a light rain, then took our cruise. Here are a few funky pictures from the area

The last pic is a family from Miami who we enjoyed talking to.  The whole cruise was Latinos (from Miami, Argentina, Madrid, etc) so we all had a great time talking Spanish together.

We arrived in Amsterdam yesterday after a challenging two day trip to get there.   We love Albuquerque but there aren’t a lot of direct flights to anywhere else from there.  Philadelphia had direct flights, but we had to fly through DFW (Dallas/Ft. Worth) getting there.  For the last couple of years, DFW has been  a cursed airport for us — delays, cancellations, unexpected hotel stays.  Recently they’ve had thousands of flights cancelled for weather.  So we planned lots of flex in our schedule’– we had a 6 am flight, which turned into a 5 AM flight due to daylight savings.  That gave us several backup flights to get to Philadelphia and spend the night before traveling on.  I loathe early morning flights; I am a morning zombie, so getting up at 230 am to make the flight was torture.  But we knew that high winds are most likely in the afternoon and evening so I sucked it up and took the early flight. 

Because of  the timing of the connecting flight, we didn’t get to eat breakfast, and those little cookies in the plane were not an adequate substitute.  I was hangry by the time we got our bags, caught the hotel shuttle and checked into our hotel, the doubletree airport.  Of course, their restaurant was closed until 4 PM so those wickedly delicious cookies they give you at check-in had to suffice until then. Sugar high then a nasty crash.  There are no restaurants within walking distance.  The hotel does have a small market but it was almost exclusively sweet or junk food.  I did check GrubHub and they had some enticing options but Ray needed to sleep and I didn’t want it to disturb him with a delivery. 

So I checked on Luca at doggy day care (canine country club Westside), and relaxed on the comfortable bed in our hotel room.

If you’re staying at the airport Doubletree the bar/cafe has decent pub food.  The waiter was very courteous but not knowledgeable about their beer selection so we just picked ones that sounded good.  Ray had a crab sandwich and I had hummus/olives/pita.  Good but not earth shattering.

We went to bed early but I got up at 1030 pm to check us into our international flight to Amsterdam.  It went smoothly until I tried to register Ray’s passport (I’m doing all this in the dark, surreptitiously, in secret agent mode so I don’t wake Ray).  I scanned the photo page.  American airlines wasn’t happy, said it didn’t match his reservation.  Aargh!!!!  So then I scanned the RFID (back cover).  Still an unhappy app.  So I opted for a manual check of his passport at the airport.  Sheesh.  But I got back to sleep and only disturbed Ray a little. And we did have boarding passes and assigned seats so no need to panic, yet.

The next morning we ate at the Double Tree’s breakfast restaurant.  The staff was lovely but it seems the provisioning needs some help   I ordered an omelet with fruit on the side.  Instead I got fried potato cubes on the side.  They offered to fix it, but then came back saying they were out of fruit. Guess Ray’s yogurt/fruit/granola used up the last of their fruit. 

The DoubleTree airport was extremely expensive for what it was, so despite the lovely staff I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it.  There is a Marriott attached to the airport so I would check reviews for that one instead.

We checked out and headed to the airport where a scan of Ray’s passport in the bag check machine made their system happy. 

Fortunately, due to all the expenses for my brother Stephen –flying in when his caretakers bailed, renting a car for a month, and hotels for two weeks while the caretakers dilly dallied about getting their stuff out, etc–I had platinum status with American airlines.  That meant we got to spend the hours until boarding at the Admiral’s club, with comfortable seating, clean restrooms, and free food and drinks.  It was restful and definitely a step up from the plastic chairs at the gate.

Our flight was uneventful except that I couldn’t sleep.  I’d been drowsy all afternoon and then once supper was served, my eyes were glued open.  I couldn’t sleep.  At all.  The  entire flight. I did enjoy a beautiful sunrise as we cruised into Amsterdam, though.

Customs was super easy — hand them your passport, say where you’re visiting and you’re stamped and off to baggage claim. Once you get your luggage, if you have nothing to declare, you walk out the door.

By now, my body has decided it was finally ready to sleep.  Great timing!  So I downed a triple espresso not knowing whether I’d ever be able to sleep again in the next century.  I was hoping it would make me alert enough that I wouldn’t screw up this next part–getting to our hotel via Amsterdam’s excellent public transit system.  It didn’t.

I had the app loaded on my phone and I found the public transit station so all I needed to do was find the poles with orange tops and gates, slap my credit card to get on, get on the right train, and then slap again at the gates to check out. Easy peasy, right?  Except I couldn’t find the poles/gates I found an escalator to the train I wanted, but no poles anywhere.  I found the right train and got on thinking maybe there was someplace to tap on there. Nope. So I asked the other riders what I had done wrong.  They were quite alarmed because there are gigantic fines for not tapping into the system.  They repeated the story about the poles with orange tops.  Sigh.

At the central station, I approached some transit police and grovelled, explaining my screw up.  Have I mentioned that Dutch people seem to be as overwhelmingly nice as Canadians?  They got me straightened out, escorted me out of the station, and didn’t charge me anything, much less the mega fine  that was allowed by law.  Whew. 

Next, we had what should have been a 10 minute walk to our hotel.  Unfortunately, both google maps, and city mapper were seemingly on strike that day

They sent us in the wrong direction, or maybe it was me, I was still running on about a quarter cylinder. After about twenty minutes walking with our luggage, dodging speeding bicycles, and not getting closer to our hotel, we stopped and were trying to figure out what we’d done wrong.  Fortunately, a sweet Dutch woman stopped and got us pointed in the right direction.  Hooray. 

We made it to our digs, the very posh Grand Hotel Krasnspolsky, succeeded in getting an early check in and collapsed . https://www.anantara.com/en/grand-hotel-krasnapolsky-amsterdam