Our Amsterdam Adventure

I had to teach a course for Microsoft in Amsterdam, Netherlands, from September 16 to 19, 2003. Erlinda and I left on the Sunday 14th and returned on Sunday the 21st.

The beginning of the adventure.

This trip was better than the Hong Kong and Singapore trips, because this time, Erlinda was with me.

What a difference!

Our plane was a nice big Boeing 767, and we had exit row seats.

As you know, Erlinda needs all the room she can get, for her long legs. (Yeah, right.)

I don't know if you've ever flown 8 hours plus non-stop, but it's a long time.

It seems especially long when you're travelling through the night.

We left Atlanta at a quarter to six in the evening on Sunday the 14th.

Fast forward to the almost-end of the journey.

When I took this shot, we had travelled about 3500 miles or so, and it was getting toward daybreak on Monday the 15th.

This was our first glimpse of the city of Amsterdam as our 767 descended toward Schiphol airport.

Someone must have known we were coming, and orderd up a special cloud formation.

Whew! We're actually here, finallly, in Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.

Memo to airport designers: always have a sign that says, "Welcome to...."

It's much appreciated by photo-takers, who want to make a record of their location.

The Schiphol airport houses a large shopping center.

You can see just a small portion of it behind Erlinda.

More on that later.

As we were going through Immigration, guess who showed up?

My buddy Steve Borg, my co-instructor for the course.

He had also come in on an overnight flight, and coincidentally arrived just as we did.

As we waited for Steve's luggage (Erlinda and I had only carry-ons, as usual), I tried to take a picture of all three of us.

As you can see, my arm wasn't qu-i-i-i-te long enough to get us all in the frame.

Oh well...I tried.

Steve took this shot of us at carousel 19. Usually we just stroll right past the carousels, feeling sorry for those who have to wait for luggage.

This time, we were waiting for Steve's stuff, so we made use of the time to chat and for him to get acquainted with Erlinda, whom he was meeting for the first time.

On the road to the hotel, we sat in front with the driver.

Remember how I decided in Singapore that I'd never sit in the back again on a from-the-airport run?

Yup, I stuck to it.

We were scheduled to stay at the Radisson SAS hotel.

It was located about 10 minutes from the airport.

Nice place.

The Radisson's reception area was unusual.

Instead of a long counter, they had four desks adjoining each other, each set at a slight angle.

Inez, the lady on the left, checked us in. She was kind enough to let us have a room at the unheard of hour of 9:25 a.m. (their normal check-in time is 3:00 p.m.).

No doubt she was having pity on the poor souls who had just endured a night of cross Atlantic flight. By the way, notice the flowers on Inez's desk.

Aha! Erlinda's first-ever picture with the new digital camera.

She liked the flower arrangement, and she just had to have a photo of it.

So while I was working out details with Inez, she shot it.

Now, you would have thought that two sensible people who'd had so little sleep would simply hit the sack and catch up.

But we knew that for the next four days I'd be tied up teaching, and therefore this day was precious for sight-seeing.

So we hopped on a train, headed for Amsterdam.

We actually caught the train back at the airport.

As you can see, Schiphol is both an airport and a train station.

The trains are below ground.

Pretty soon we arrived at the Centraal Station (note the spelling), where trains converge from multiple directions.

"Uitgang" on the green sign on the left, means something like "Exit" or "The Way Out."

Once you descend the stairs you find access to many other platforms.

Now what do you think this building is? A palace? Government headquarters?

Wrong. It's the front entrance of the Amsterdam Centraal Station, where we'd just arrived.

Erlinda's second photo.

She caught me heading away from the train station into the heart of the city.

(Sh-h-h-h. Little secret here. I was actually a little annoyed with her when I walked away. I think it was about which boat cruise to take or something silly like that. In reality, we were both ver-r-r-ry tired, and we got a little snappy. Of course, we made up later. Yes, sir. We made up later.)

There were tons of boats available for touring the city's canals.

The canals run in concentric rings through the city.

We decided to take a canal tour, and this was our craft.

If you look closely, in the upper left, you'll notice what looks like three ramps.

They're actually parking areas for bicycles. The Dutch do a lot of cycling (probably why most of them seem so fit), and we saw literally hundreds of bicycles parked in that parking area.

Once we were seated, we asked a nearby tourist to take this shot of us.

Want to see the rest of the cruise? Check the next entry.