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Amsterdam, 12/5 - 12/6/10
Jan. 16th, 2011 03:23 pmThe first day of our trip we spent in airports and on airplanes. Maudi's tacos at two for $3.50 were cheaper and better than the food for sale on the strangely empty flight to Chicago. In the Chicago airport, I quite enjoyed getting Chicago-style pizza. On our flight to London, we lucked out with extra wide seats that did not have TV screens on the seatbacks in front of us (they pulled out of the armrest).
We got to London so early that they didn't know which gate we'd be flying out of. When this happens in the US, they send you to some random empty gate and then tell you that the gate has changed. But in London, they just tell you what time to expect that information.
The part of the airport we were in had our favorite English chain restaurant (Pret a Manger, though it was just called Pret), and J's favorite chain restaurant in The Netherlands (Wagamama).
Adventures on the last flight
The pilot for our flight to Amsterdam, in a wonderful British accent, explained that although we had been assigned a time slot for leaving, that slot had already passed because the plane had been late coming in from Amsterdam due to bad weather. We were given a new slot, but it was two hours away. We might be moved up before then, but probably only a few minutes. Meanwhile, we had to pull away from the terminal to make room for another plane.
(This reminded me of that episode on the Simpsons where Homer is getting a present for Bart, and each time the storekeeper says something, Homer goes back and forth between saying, "that's good" and "that's bad." We have a time slot--that's good! But it's already passed--that's bad. Now we have a new time slot--that's good. But it's two hours away--that's bad. But we might get moved up--that's good. But only a few minutes--that's bad.) It turns out we didn't have to wait the whole two hours after all, more like 30 minutes.
I was able to fall asleep briefly on this flight but awoke just as the flight attendant asked me "Take off your wah-tern?" Over and over. He wanted me to take out my earplugs so I could understand him, but earplugs were not the problem. Finally, I figured it out and replied "water, please." He had been asking "Tea, coffee, or water?"
Once we got close to Amsterdam, it was time for another story in that lovely British accent. We'd been circling to land, but there was a long line of planes waiting to land, and our time slot was so far in the future that we didn't have enough fuel. As our airline prioritizes safety, we were going to land in Brussels and refuel.
(I was hoping he was going to say that we'd land at The Hague, because a lady next to us was trying to make a meeting there. But no.) (The guys behind us were upset that obviously the plane hadn't refueled in London as it should have.) (Mmmm, Brussels.)
About one minute later, the pilot explained that Schiphol had changed their minds and given us a better time slot for which we did have enough fuel. It was fun watching the graphic of our plane's flight show us making another U-turn.
Later he learned that the back-up of planes at the airport had gotten so out of control that they'd decided to open another landing strip, but the taxi back to the terminal would take a while: 10 minutes.
After landing, the plan was to take a train into town and then a tram to the hotel.
How to Get Money
In the past when I traveled to Europe, I brought a credit card and used an ATM to get local money. But I'd read that (especially with all the horrible fees they add for foreign use of cards) it's better to bring cash and exchange it at a particular bank which has better fees, and this bank has branches right at the airport. We did not, however, find any of those branches. We found branches of another bank with terrible rates.
Then we decided to try buying the train tickets from a machine with a credit card and put off exchanging money. None of our credit or debit cards worked. It turns out that you need both a PIN and a chip. Do any American credit cards even come with a chip?
Our credit cards also didn't work at the train ticket window. The clerk there was appalled at the insecurity. You mean we just sign for purchases? And it's worse that that! Sometimes, we'd rather sign than use a PIN because we don't want to trust stores with our PINs!
So we went to the expensive bank. I decided to exchange a small amount of money there and hold out for the better bank to exchange the rest. Then we went back to the counter and bought train tickets with euros. (On our way back, there was an announcement that due to technical difficulties, these counters could not sell tickets for cash. I don't know what we would have done if this had happened on our way in.)
After getting off the train, we needed to buy tram tickets, but all the machines required credit cards with chips. We waited in various lines to ask people what to do, and let me just say that although the rumors we heard that basically all the Dutch speak English is true, they were not very good at explaining to us how to by tram tickets.
Finally, we walked all the way down the long hall before exiting to look for "the white building" where we pulled a number, waited a bit and got one-way tram tickets. Robin vowed never to ride the tram again. We considered taking an overpriced shuttle from the hotel directly to the airport.
Our paranoid map checking allowed us to have no trouble finding our hotel and we had no trouble checking in. But after lugging our suitcases around all day, it seemed that for a place that's so famously flat, there are an awful lot of steps.
A lovely walk
We ran out for a short walk before it got dark. (Sunset in Amsterdam in December is at 5:30.)
Here's a little park and canal near our hotel.
Here is a row of buildings. Some of them lean forward a bit.
We found out the next day that sometimes the leaning is due to settling on foundations that are not quite good enough and sometimes forward leaning is intentional. (More information on that later.)
Here's a close-up view of an interesting bridge rail near our hotel.
Each panel is different.
Here are more buildings and a tram. I can't help thinking of the middle three buildings as sisters singing in a trio. See their hair and shoulders? Their white noses and square mouths?
Here's a night view of a canal. We heard that Amsterdam has more canals than Venice. Canals certainly used to be the obvious choice for transportation.
The early sunset was not problem for us that day. We fell into bed at 5:30. The bed was so extraordinarily horizontal (compared to plane chairs). It was positively luxurious.
We got to London so early that they didn't know which gate we'd be flying out of. When this happens in the US, they send you to some random empty gate and then tell you that the gate has changed. But in London, they just tell you what time to expect that information.
The part of the airport we were in had our favorite English chain restaurant (Pret a Manger, though it was just called Pret), and J's favorite chain restaurant in The Netherlands (Wagamama).
Adventures on the last flight
The pilot for our flight to Amsterdam, in a wonderful British accent, explained that although we had been assigned a time slot for leaving, that slot had already passed because the plane had been late coming in from Amsterdam due to bad weather. We were given a new slot, but it was two hours away. We might be moved up before then, but probably only a few minutes. Meanwhile, we had to pull away from the terminal to make room for another plane.
(This reminded me of that episode on the Simpsons where Homer is getting a present for Bart, and each time the storekeeper says something, Homer goes back and forth between saying, "that's good" and "that's bad." We have a time slot--that's good! But it's already passed--that's bad. Now we have a new time slot--that's good. But it's two hours away--that's bad. But we might get moved up--that's good. But only a few minutes--that's bad.) It turns out we didn't have to wait the whole two hours after all, more like 30 minutes.
I was able to fall asleep briefly on this flight but awoke just as the flight attendant asked me "Take off your wah-tern?" Over and over. He wanted me to take out my earplugs so I could understand him, but earplugs were not the problem. Finally, I figured it out and replied "water, please." He had been asking "Tea, coffee, or water?"
Once we got close to Amsterdam, it was time for another story in that lovely British accent. We'd been circling to land, but there was a long line of planes waiting to land, and our time slot was so far in the future that we didn't have enough fuel. As our airline prioritizes safety, we were going to land in Brussels and refuel.
(I was hoping he was going to say that we'd land at The Hague, because a lady next to us was trying to make a meeting there. But no.) (The guys behind us were upset that obviously the plane hadn't refueled in London as it should have.) (Mmmm, Brussels.)
About one minute later, the pilot explained that Schiphol had changed their minds and given us a better time slot for which we did have enough fuel. It was fun watching the graphic of our plane's flight show us making another U-turn.
Later he learned that the back-up of planes at the airport had gotten so out of control that they'd decided to open another landing strip, but the taxi back to the terminal would take a while: 10 minutes.
After landing, the plan was to take a train into town and then a tram to the hotel.
How to Get Money
In the past when I traveled to Europe, I brought a credit card and used an ATM to get local money. But I'd read that (especially with all the horrible fees they add for foreign use of cards) it's better to bring cash and exchange it at a particular bank which has better fees, and this bank has branches right at the airport. We did not, however, find any of those branches. We found branches of another bank with terrible rates.
Then we decided to try buying the train tickets from a machine with a credit card and put off exchanging money. None of our credit or debit cards worked. It turns out that you need both a PIN and a chip. Do any American credit cards even come with a chip?
Our credit cards also didn't work at the train ticket window. The clerk there was appalled at the insecurity. You mean we just sign for purchases? And it's worse that that! Sometimes, we'd rather sign than use a PIN because we don't want to trust stores with our PINs!
So we went to the expensive bank. I decided to exchange a small amount of money there and hold out for the better bank to exchange the rest. Then we went back to the counter and bought train tickets with euros. (On our way back, there was an announcement that due to technical difficulties, these counters could not sell tickets for cash. I don't know what we would have done if this had happened on our way in.)
After getting off the train, we needed to buy tram tickets, but all the machines required credit cards with chips. We waited in various lines to ask people what to do, and let me just say that although the rumors we heard that basically all the Dutch speak English is true, they were not very good at explaining to us how to by tram tickets.
Finally, we walked all the way down the long hall before exiting to look for "the white building" where we pulled a number, waited a bit and got one-way tram tickets. Robin vowed never to ride the tram again. We considered taking an overpriced shuttle from the hotel directly to the airport.
Our paranoid map checking allowed us to have no trouble finding our hotel and we had no trouble checking in. But after lugging our suitcases around all day, it seemed that for a place that's so famously flat, there are an awful lot of steps.
A lovely walk
We ran out for a short walk before it got dark. (Sunset in Amsterdam in December is at 5:30.)
Here's a little park and canal near our hotel.
Here is a row of buildings. Some of them lean forward a bit.
We found out the next day that sometimes the leaning is due to settling on foundations that are not quite good enough and sometimes forward leaning is intentional. (More information on that later.)
Here's a close-up view of an interesting bridge rail near our hotel.
Each panel is different.
Here are more buildings and a tram. I can't help thinking of the middle three buildings as sisters singing in a trio. See their hair and shoulders? Their white noses and square mouths?
Here's a night view of a canal. We heard that Amsterdam has more canals than Venice. Canals certainly used to be the obvious choice for transportation.
The early sunset was not problem for us that day. We fell into bed at 5:30. The bed was so extraordinarily horizontal (compared to plane chairs). It was positively luxurious.