Saturday July 13 - Sunday July 14, 2019
Our first day was the longest day. Actually, it was a 36 hour day that started on Saturday July 13th...
I got up at 7:30 am on Saturday to shower and finish some final packing details, then it was off to the Johnson County fairgrounds to drop off G and my entries for the fair. The fair runs July 14th - 20th this year. G and I both found friends willing to pick up our entries at the end. G entered two drawings in the Junior Fine Arts category. My only entry was my Persian Tiles Eastern Jewels Afghan in the Crocheted Afghan category. This is my State Fair entry too so I was fortunate to find someone to pick it up from the County Fair and drop it off at the State Fair.
Once our entries were dropped off it was GO time!
We had an uneventful flight from Indy to Newark that was just short of 2 hours. G and I barely had time to grab some Auntie Anne's pretzels from the slowest pretzel stand in North America before boarding our flight to Amsterdam.
Our flight to Amsterdam was 8.5 hours. We flew Economy so it was a bit uncomfortable but all in all uneventful. I spent my time watching a documentary (Free Solo, highly recommend it) and trying to sleep. I never could get comfortable enough to sleep though.
For this international flight, we were first offered beverages... and hey, did you know, you can have complimentary beer and wine on an international flight on United? We then had dinner. G and I got the spinach and mushroom manicotti with eggplant. Hubs got the chicken in parmesan sauce. About an hour before landing we were offered a light breakfast of yogurt and a croissant.
We landed in Amsterdam Schiphol Airport at 7am Amsterdam time... so 1am "real" time.
The first thing that struck me was how quiet and empty the airport was. There was no line at passport control. We went through an exit at Customs that said "Nothing to Declare" and found ourselves out of the gate area. Just like that. No paperwork. No one to talk to... we were in Amsterdam!
Next order of business was finding an ATM. I used my Schwab debit card to withdraw some Euros. Schwab does not charge a transaction fee and will refund me any ATM fees so it's essentially getting the exact exchange rate this way and not having to pay any currency exchange fees.
We then purchased train tickets from the airport to Amsterdam Centraal Station for 5,50 Euros each. Centraal Station is like Grand Central Station for all the trams (trollies) in Amsterdam. We purchased one day passes for 8,00 Euros each, then found the #14 line which would take us to the Hostel we would be staying at, hubs and I for the night, and G for the entire 2 weeks.
Again I was struck by how quiet and empty Centraal Station was...
Yes, it was pointed out to me that it was 8am on a Sunday morning but still.... there was so much silence.
And there were bicycles. Hundreds and hundreds of bicycles... but no people.
The Stayokay Hostel was a short walk from the Zeeburgerdijk tram stop. Check in was not until 3 pm but they were happy to store our luggage.
Stayokay Hostel
Since the A'dam Lookout didn't open until 10 am and our lunch reservations weren't until 1:30 pm, we actually spent several hours at the Hostel eating and getting our bearings. The Hostel had some nice common areas to sit and relax. Hubs also was having difficulty getting the British SIM card to work in his phone so we needed time to just sit.
We finally got moving again and took to the tram back over to Centraal Station, to then took the free ferry over the Het IJ to the A'dam Lookout. Oh, and it also started spitting rain...
Perhaps the rain was a blessing in disguise. In many of the reviews I had read about the A'dam Lookout people had complained about how crowded it was at the top. Not today!
I'm glad G suggested we do the swing BEFORE eating. In my exhausted sleep deprived state (we'd been up for over 24 hours now) I actually got a bit nauseous once we started swinging.
We took more photos on the skydeck after swinging, then moved indoors to the observation deck on the 20th floor. It was only 12:45 pm by then but we went down to the Moon Restaurant on the 19th floor to see if we could get in early and were delighted to find that we could.
The Moon Restaurant is a revolving restaurant that provides panoramic views of the city as you dine.
G ordered the Monkfish. I ordered the Beef Shoulder and Hubs got the Pigeon.
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Pigeon
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Not some place I would frequent again, but I'm glad we tried it.
We soon discovered that eating out in Europe takes FOREVER! We got back to the Hostel at 3:15pm. By now it was time for G to check into her program and all the other dancers had arrived so I put our bags away while she checked in.
Hubs and I got a 2 person room for the night for 60,55 Euros. G would be sharing a room with 4 other girls. There were two girls from Italy, one from Canada, and one from South Korea.
Once all of us got settled we rested for a bit before reconvening downstairs. We decided we were too tired to go back out for dinner so we are at the bistro at the Hostel. The food was great. Hubs got fish and chips, I got a margherita pizza, and G got a Caesar's salad. G collapsed in her room after that. As for Hubs and I, well... we went back into town.
We took the tram to the Rembrandtplein stop where we had seen a plethora of restaurants around a square. We spent some time walking around, then found some ice cream for dessert.
We got back to the Hostel around 10 pm. It was still light out. I commented that the last time I had felt like this we had been vacationing in Alaska.
After 36 hours, we went to bed.
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