Rainy Day in Amsterdam
The trip over went reasonably well. We were scheduled to leave Nashville at 11:45 a.m., but we breezed through TSA PreCheck and managed to get onto a 10:00 a.m. flight to Philadelphia. Of course, that just meant a longer wait in Philadelphia. We got there around 1:00 p.m. EDT. Our flight to Amsterdam wasn’t scheduled to board until 6:05, so we had a leisurely lunch at Legal Seafood and then found a place to sit and read.

Boarding went smoothly, and then we sat and sat. Finally, the pilot announced that someone had checked a bag that had been loaded onto the plane, and then the person never boarded. Apparently that’s a big no-no, so we had to wait until they found the bag and took it off the plane. We were over an hour late leaving, but we were only 15 minutes late getting in to Amsterdam, arriving at 9:00 a.m.(2:00 a.m. CDT). We both managed to sleep some on the plane, so we’ll see how we sleep tonight and how we feel tomorrow.

Our seats were right next to the door, so we were some of the first people off the plane. We walked right through passport control with no lines. We weren’t even questioned. We managed to find an ATM for cash and got train tickets to Amsterdam Centraal. I (George) managed to put us on the wrong train. It was going to Amsterdam Suid (south) rather than Amsterdam Centraal. A helpful Dutchman told us that we could catch a tram at Amsterdam Suid and it would take us into town. So we took the tram to Dam Square and walked to our hotel from there.

Our rooms weren’t ready, but Chris—one of the two owners—welcomed us and let us leave our bags until the room was ready. So we got our raincoats and headed for the Maritime Museum. I had seen the museum last year, but Vicki wanted to see it as well, so we walked through the museum and had a bowl of tomato soup for lunch before walking back to the hotel.

The Tulip of Amsterdam is a B&B with only two rooms. It sits in the back of an old canal house across the canal from the B&B we stayed at last year. The proprietors, Chris and David live here as well. Our room is on the 1st floor (up one flight of narrow, winding steps) and is nice and cozy.

Vicki:

We had pretty good seats with lots of leg room.  There were only 2 seats on our “row” by one of the big front exit doors.  Sleeping sitting in an airplane seat continues to be a challenge for me even with George’s sleep shift routine the week before we left.  By the end of the week, he was getting up at 3:00 am and going to bed pretty early.  I was getting up at 4:00 or so and at 3:00 the morning we left.  As I was sitting in the plane waiting for the baggage people to find the bag of the passenger who didn’t show up, I began to wonder if the new sleep routine didn’t serve to make me grumpier than usual rather than all accustomed to a new time zone.  I did sleep some on the plane.  I know because I kept waking up throughout the trip.

The Tulip of Amsterdam B&B is pretty cute.  Our room is actually big with a tiny bath.  It seems to be very comfortable.  We’ll see how it goes, but we’re initially impressed.  Chris was very kind to us this morning and again when we checked in this afternoon.

Here’s a link to the Maritime Museum:

https://www.hetscheepvaartmuseum.nl/discover/exhibitions

There were several really impressive exhibits.  I was astounded to see all the old atlases.  The Blaeu volumes were published in the 1600s.  They are large and I think there were 9 volumes of the one set.  All of the atlases were beautiful.  I also found the exhibit of the old navigation tools interesting.  They have 2 bronze astrolabes.  These are very rare.  These instruments were finally replaced with sextants.  The bronze instruments were typically melted down for the metal so not many remain.  The exhibit of maritime paintings was pretty wonderful as well.  One battle depicted in a painting was one of 100 British ships against 98 Dutch ships.  There were a lot of ships in that painting.  A lot of ships . . .I did enjoy this museum a great deal.  It’s housed in a storehouse and arsenal built in the mid 1600s.

Looking forward to our visit here.  We have a loose plan for each day but also want to be flexible enough to sleep in if we like.  That would be like 7:30 for us.