A Day At the Vincent Van Gogh, Then A Morning At the Royal Palace

We had an early morning at the Van Gogh Museum, at least early morning for us at 10 am. It is about a ½ hour walk which meant leaving at 9:30. We really had to wake up early, by 7:30 am. OMG. 

One of my favorite pieces

We went thru 2 of the 3 floors of the museum by probably 1pm and were tired and hungry. As it turns out the café isn’t open yet, due to Covid so we went down to the entry and got a coffee from the kiosk. It was easy and the coffee filled our belly’s. But the coffee kiosk is by the store so of course we had to visit that. After buying things like an umbrella and a silk scarf for me we sat and had another cup of coffee. Finally, we got up and started the tour over. 

Van Gogh's palette and paint tubes

There were so many paintings to take photos of. I have this idea to print up small photos and make a collage but am not sure how the photos will turn out. But I love Van Gogh, have since forever, so it was so amazing to be in his presence. 

It is difficult to write about art museums, I just don’t have words to describe most of it to convey what I see. Also, there are just too many paintings to write about so I’m attaching a link instead.

https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en 

But basically, the museum is divided up into years. The 1st floor contains lots of his self-portraits. It struck me how his eyes are full of anguish, a haunted look. The 2nd are the middle years and the 3rd his last year, with the last painting being the one that he was working on just before shooting himself. Apparently, the paint had not dried, but it was striking that it was of tangled up tree roots. 

The Potato Eaters

Thank goodness, his sister-in-law had her wits about her and only sold a few paintings. His nephew kept the collection together so that we could enjoy it today. 

As we are nearing the end of our stay in Amsterdam, we are starting to feel the heat to get lots done: eat our favorite foods, drink our favorite drinks, see our favorite places. 

Some photos of canals

But for the next day, we did have tickets to see the Royal Palace. Fortunately, those tickets were not early so we could sleep in, since we don’t go to bed until well after midnight. 

They Royal Palace

The Royal Palace was interesting, but we didn’t see the King or Queen. Why? I have no idea! But the palace is still decorated from the time of Napoleon, and the heavy French baroque stuff. 

It was a City Hall before Napoleon came along but he decided that it would make a great palace and there you have it. 

https://www.paleisamsterdam.nl/en/

It is always fun to see the balcony where the royalty steps out on to greet the masses and rooms where they entertain other heads of state. Also, when this was a City Hall, in Rembrandt’s time, it is where he went to settle his alimony suit with his mistress and where he filed bankruptcy. 

We were quite cold after the tour so popped into the New Church Café for a bowl of soup and coffee. The steaming hot tomato soup warmed us so that we could walk to get our Covid Testing, this is required to return to the US. 

Typical demonstrations going on every day. 

I’d wanted to go for one more friets but had to realize that then I’d be too full for another meal at the Mediterranean restaurant. Oh, the choices we must make! 

The Owner of the restaurant gave me the can of tomato paste after I kept asking questions on how to make different sauces.

We had our tests done and what is nice is that here in the Netherlands there is no charge. Quite a change from other EU countries. Anyway, we quite forgot about our tests and to check to make sure that we got the results. Off we went for pre-dinner drinks at the Lockkeepers house and then dinner.

Drinks at the Lockkeepers House

A Day in Amsterdam, A Day in Leiden

 After so many days of running around we really needed to get some stuff done here. There was some washing of clothes to do by hand, shopping, that sort of thing. Also, we were just tired and after breakfast went back to sleep.

One of the women who works at the front desk had sent me a list of restaurants that specialized in gluten free food. One of the places was across the street, Mediterranean, with lots of gluten free options. We decided to try that. Also, we’d found an organ concert at a church nearby, and wanted to attend.

We went shopping and got some more French wine that we have been enjoying in the evening then went across the street to the Mediterranean restaurant. Wow, what amazing food they have. We decided that we’d probably go there for our go-to meals. It is just down at the next corner and across the street.

There are several items we want to try. For now, we had a grilled chicken thighs with a mushroom cream sauce. The sauce isn’t very creamy as in cream, but just a nice thick sauce. They gave us bread, olives and some artichoke salad on the side, which were all excellent. We also ordered a bean salad that I will try to make at home.

The organ concert was great. We decided that organ concerts are best in catholic churches with all of the saints and gods and angles floating around up to the beautiful stained-glass domes along with the music.

We were looking forward to an early night of sleep, but instead had our usual, snacks at 11:30 pm and into bed by 12:30.

The following morning, we planned to make one more day trip, this time to Leiden. Rick Steves recommend this trip and it just sounded nice. Leiden is about ½ hour by train and a university town. Albert Einstein taught at this university and students have include politicians and famous people.   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leiden_University

It had also been forecast to rain but when we left there was no rain. We did not fear as we had our new umbrellas and our rain coats. We were ready.

Again, we got to the train station, bought our tickets and the train was boarding. We started to run but the conductor said that they would wait for us. We hopped on board and found a seat.

We got off the train in Leiden and stopped to see which way to go. Rick Steves said that there was a herring place outside. Sure enough, we just got out the door of the station and there was a little trailer selling herring, like our taco trucks. 

There was a crowd buying herring but we had to see what was being offered. Pickled Herring in a cream sauce and with beets!!! We haven’t had these since we were in Iceland. The herring in a cream sauce used to be in stores in LA. We’d eat jars of this stuff but how haven’t seen it in ages, so of course, we had to buy a pint jar of each. 

We decided that we were actually hungry so found a little place to stand and started to eat. Then it started to rain, and really rain. We packed up our herring, went to a covered alcove, put on our rain coats and moved to a table by a Starbucks. Of course, the rain stopped but we just sat and finished up the entire 2 jars of herring. 

An old windmill

The Carpenter's House from 1620

After we finished our herring, we started to do our walk and saw some people eating herring the Dutch way, raw, holding it up in the air then as they drop it into their mouth, take a bite, eat and so on until it is gone. And even though we love sushi, we just couldn’t do this.

Leiden is famous for other things, besides it’s herring, it is the birth place of Rembrandt and it is where the Pilgrims stayed before going back to England to sail to the New World.

The house that the leader of the Pilgrims lived in

We walked by the university first and as it turned out, it was a graduation day for at least 1 of the schools so we saw women and men dressed up with their diplomas and families. It was fun to see the graduates and their families but made the immediate areas very busy.

This is the site where the house was where Rembrandt was born and raised. The sculptures are of Rembrandt young looking at himself when he was old.

We visited the area where the house was when Rembrandt grew up, walked by his school, visited the site of the orphanage, and the area that the Pilgrims lived before leaving. There is a home, very old home, called the Pilgrims home that has items used at the time they would have lived there. Unfortunately, it was closed so we could only look in the windows.

The fortress at the top of the man made hill

After several hours of walking, we made it to the windmill museum but it was closed. By that time, I was starving and had to get food. We found a restaurant on the square that had pancakes, lots of types of pancakes and gluten free. We had one pancake with brie and tomatoes and one with ham, mushrooms and cheese. The pancakes were more like a crepe but so good.

Mushroom, bacon and cheese pancake on the left and brie and tomato on the right.

Another great day and lots of good food.

A Day At the Hague

 We had a day of playing in Amsterdam, nothing too strenuous at the Botanical Gardens, now it was a day of museums. Well, really, it started out as only 1 museum.

I had wanted for us to go to the Hague as there was one museum that I wanted to go to, the Mauritshuis House. This is the museum where Vermeer’s “Girl with The Pearl Earring” is hanging as well as several Rembrandt’s, other Vermeer’s, Rubens and Steen.

I had attempted to purchase tickets for the Mauritshuis but there was nothing available. Instead, I found the Escher Museum and since Dale and I really like Escher, bought tickets for that.

We took the train, catching it seconds before it pulled out, a good sign!

We arrived in The Hague and walked to the Escher Museum using Google, which took us in a total circle. I did see the Mauritshuis and stopped to shoot photos on the way to Escher.

The Escher Museum is located in what was the Royal Palace. We totally loved the exhibit although, I did get really irritated at some of the pieces as they are so mind blowing. I'd look at the piece and after studying the piece lose the 1^st prospective, then lose the 2^nd.

The top floor has interactive exhibits, which are not hands on with Covid. But we had fun on that floor and took some videos for the grandkids.

These are just sheets of metal

We were really hungry after the Escher but I knew that they did not have anything gluten free. Instead, I told Dale that we should go to the Mauritshuis and just see if we could get in. And because the Mauritshuis was only minutes away that is what we did.

We quickly walked over to the area of the Mauritshuis and as I was walking to where I thought it was, Dale called to me, “here it is, the museum is here”. We went up the steps and were told, yes there are tickets. We bought our tickets at ½ price as one whole section was closed.

Well, there were no paintings from Vermeer or Rembrandt. Only doll houses set up and some local stuff. Dale was convinced that the Vermeer and Rembrandt were in the closed section. I looked at the handout and realized that we were at the wrong museum. We quickly picked up our backpack and left.

A few feet away was the Mauritshuis, just where I knew I’d seen the sign when we’d walked in the big circle. We quickly went to the courtyard entry. I told the people at the front that I couldn’t buy tickets online before and we wanted to see the paintings so badly, if only there was some tickets available. They made some phone calls and sure enough there was space for us to enter. Boy, did we hurry in, pay, put the backpack in a locker, and scoot up to the paintings.

Wow, a room full of Rembrandt, another several of Vermeer, Steen, Rubens and so many others. We were in paintings heaven!

Girl with the Pearl Earring

https://www.mauritshuis.nl/en/explore/history-mauritshuis/

The Mauritshuis House is a house that belonged to Johan Maurits. The house and his collection are controversial as he made his money by the slave trade. I’m attaching the link to the museum so that you can read for yourself. But we loved the paintings.

By the time we were done with the Mauritshuis we were freezing cold and starving, and the café was closed. We were told to go to the square across the street for some food, where we’d likely find something we could eat.

Risotto and Prawn Curry

Like most squares, the restaurants spill out onto the sidewalks and the square. We found one, the waiter went and got the allergen book and went over it with us. A dinner of Risotto with mushrooms and tomatoes, and a curry with prawns while we sat by a fire was what we needed. Dale had really great beer and I had some wine. We got to the train with a full mind and belly for our ride back to the hotel.

A Visit to the Botanical Gardens

 
Today was forecast to be sunny, no clouds and warm, a perfect day to spend outside. Of course, most of Amsterdam felt the same way but it wasn’t so crowded.

After a leisurely breakfast we walked over to the botanical gardens, stopping to shoot photos on one bridge over a canal. The sun was so bright with people walking and biking every which way.

The view from the top of a bridge. The opera house is to the right

The gardens are not on a large area but very efficiently planted. There are areas of evolution, and then categories of plants. The whole thing was started in 1638.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hortus_Botanicus_(Amsterdam)

If you know us well, you know that we can’t grow much of any kind of plant, even when we try. And what we know about plants we could write in 1 word, nothing. So, starting with this it was going to make for an interesting time.

But actually, the gardens are very nice, and they make for a lazy afternoon. There are little paths that go around so that you don’t get tired of seeing plants. There, to our surprise was a redwood tree from California. It is quite tall and we felt like we should warn them about tall redwood trees in the wind.

We did locate the oldest plant which is a male plant about 300-years-old, while the female is years younger, 200-years-old. This is like what I tell people about Dale and I, he is years older than I am! Anyway, I’m attaching photos and a photo of the description.

The oldest plant. The male is in front of Dale and the female is to the left

Coffee plants were brought here but we couldn’t find them. I’d like to see a coffee plant though.

A pretty walk

I must confess that we sat on a bench where Dale fell asleep and I read the newspaper online. But another guy was sitting reading a book when we got there and was still reading when we sat down.

Two Days in Amsterdam

 

We had a reservation for 10:30 a.m. at the Rijksmuseum. This museum is about a 30-minute walk from our hotel and has paintings of Rembrandt, Vermeer and other Dutch Masters. Additionally, there are exhibits of furniture, silver objects and other things. It isn’t as large as the Louver in Paris but large enough to be too much for 1 day.

It is interesting as there is a passageway thru the middle for bicycles and pedestrians to use to get to the other side instead of having to go all the way around. A café is on one side of the passageway and the entry is on the other with 2 stories above with the exhibits.

We got to the museum at 10:30, entered with only a small bit of hassles when the tickets didn’t download until we were inside. But we got in, dropped our backpack at the locker and went on our way.

This museum is a must see for anyone visiting Amsterdam. We did stop for lunch at the Café, which is a real Café with real lunch selections. After a glass of wine, food and then coffee, we went back to where we left off, at the Dutch Masters. We were able to see the Night Watchmen, Rembrandt’s self portrait of himself as an old man which moved us to tears, and so many other amazing paintings.

We only saw about ½ of the exhibits so have bought tickets to return on Sunday. The link should take you to some of the paintings: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/rijksstudio?ii=0&p=0&from=2021-08-24T22%3A55%3A42.5434058Z

We had planned to go to the northern area of Holland on Sunday, but it was forecast to rain all day. After a day of standing in the museum, we were getting a late start and thought we’d start off with a drink at another Brown Café, “In ‘t Aepjen”. I have provided 2 links that give a good background, but basically it is called In ‘t Aepjen as in “Stayed with the monkeys”. The links provide a fun explanation.

https://www.amsterdamsights.com/nightlife/intaepjen.html

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27t_Aepjen

Looking from our table on one side of the shop to the other side, the bar.

At the café we met a guy, you can see his back at the bar, on the right in black. He is from San Francisco living and working in The Hague. He and Dale had a lively discussion on the San Francisco Giants. Since I am a L.A. Dodgers fan, I did not have anything positive to add to their conversation, but did feel free to clarify with negative remarks.

We did discuss working and living in the Netherlands; however, we are not inclined to live here even though it is a wonderful place. We still prefer the areas around London, but are already committed to Canada.

We took the Rick Steves walk around the Jordaan area, passing by the Anne Frank House. We have tickets for a tour of the house, but feel that after visiting the Dutch Resistance Museum, we will skip a tour of the house. This is a cop-out we know, but we just don’t

want to see more of the Nazi issues this time. The Jordaan walk is not long but really pretty, lots of green plants. Blocks of flats have plants in front of their house and, as per the guide book, plants in front of a flat are ok as long as they do not extend further than one tile.

We are lucky that the walk is not a long one as it started raining, like pouring rain. Fortunately, we had our good rain jackets and had just purchased new umbrellas at the museum so we stayed mostly dry. But the rain was coming down sideways so it was a challenge.

Cold and a little damp we popped into the favorite Argentine restaurant for some hot Goulash soup and a glass of wine. The owner knows us by now and he knows what we like!

Rembrandt and A Day at his House

 We started at the Rembrandt house; this was the house that he lived in from 1639 to 1656 when he went bankrupt. The home is set up the way it was when he lived there. It was so amazing to see where he lived and how he lived. The items inside are not his but as close as possible to the same as there is a detailed inventory that exists from when he filed bankruptcy.

https://www.rembrandthuis.nl/nl/

The Rembrandt house. The Green door at street level was his entry

We spend an entire morning in the house, admiring the paintings done by Rembrandt’s pupils and his own etchings. We tried to find where he stood when painting, as there isn’t a mark in the flooring but we could only guess in the end.

A guess at where Rembrandt stood when painting

We love Rembrandt and are looking forward to seeing his paintings in the museum. For now, I want to learn more about him and his wife, and his life.

Rembrandt's bedroom and his box bed

From the museum, we followed Rick Steves guide and went across the street to the former Lockkeeper’s house. This was built in about 1695 and is now a Brown Café. This was built after Rembrandt lost his house in bankruptcy so it is important in its own right. The café has some tables and benches outside in the back that look over the canal and some tables in the front that look at the street. There are about 4 small tables inside along with the bar. Down some very narrow and not so even stairs are the toilets, and upstairs is a sitting area which we have yet to sit in. This whole area is about a 5-minute walk from our hotel

The Lockkeepers House

What we also learned is that the Dutch seem to meet at cafés for drinks at about 5-7pm. The cafés are full of people just enjoying a beer or wine or other mixed drink. What we also have learned is a café is like a tavern or bar, just drinks and sometimes a small snack. A coffeeshop is where you go to maybe have coffee but more to smoke some weed. We have learned to fit in quickly.

After nursing beers, we walked to an Argentinian restaurant for a steak and Argentinean Goulash. Nothing like a full stomach.

Argentinean Steak: Rare and salad

A Day of Contrasts in Amsterdam

 I wanted to have an easy day to start off our Amsterdam trip, especially since we had a concert at night. Of, course working out a schedule with days closed for one thing and not for the other, I had to work around all of that.

So, for our 1^st day of sightseeing, we went to the Oude Kerk (Old Church), from 1306. This is a church but also used for various exhibits. Today there was an exhibit on change using fabrics and other mediums.

A grave from the 1500's

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oude_Kerk_(Amsterdam)

The church itself is very plain as much was destroyed by the Calvinists when they got some power, isn’t that the way it is with religions? One gets in power, doesn’t matter which one and there you go. Anyway, much was destroyed but the ceiling was spared as it was too high to reach. The ceiling is a beautiful wood, painted in some places. I’ve never seen such a beautiful simple wood ceiling before.

The ceiling and floor display is visible. The floor display is a paper with drawing under water.

The old organ

It was really exciting to find Saskia, Rembrandt’s wife’s, grave. I now am determined to learn more about her.

Saskia's grave

The church is located in what is now the Red-Light District. As we walked thru the district, we did see some women sitting in the windows. But we had to wonder if they were happy with their professions, about the exploitation of women and girls, and where we stood. I had to think of the song in Les Mis “Lovely Ladies” …

“…. Easy money
Lying on a bed
Just as well they never see
The hate that's in your head….”

Also, we understand how prudish we still are in the US. It gave us a time to question what we think and why. And I don’t know what I’d do if in that person’s situation. And yes, yes, I can hear some people I know; I would/wouldn’t blab, blab, blab. But guess what, we don’t know what we’d do. But these women are safe and protected by their government and there you have it.

We went on to find some lunch and walked down to a market that I’d read about. The market is a street market going down about 4 blocks. We did find some olives but most everything either I couldn’t eat or it was stuff I wouldn’t buy for anything.

We went back to the soup place but they were about out of soups and we could only buy 1 small container. We went back to our room and split the soup, ate olives and drank a little wine.

We had a concert, Beethoven’s 4^th Piano Concerto, at the Concert Hall in the evening. Dale and I love Beethoven! So, this was a dream come true. We walked down to the concert hall, about ½ hours walk. Since our tickets did not arrive via email we had to go inside. I showed the email that was sent without tickets and was ready to show the credit card payment but they found our tickets. We proved our Covid vaccines and off we went. We collected our champagne and lite snacks, found our seats and were happy.

Inside the concert

The concert was amazing. The pianist wasn’t as dramatic or theatrical as some but he played from his heart. This we appreciated as, to us the drama and theater takes away from the music.

What a day of contrasts.

The City Walk of Amsterdam

 
We needed a really long sleep, as we were jet lagged, and completely in a different time zone, +9 hours to be exact.

When we finally woke up, we needed to get down to breakfast at our scheduled time. Here, they take Covid seriously. In the breakfast room tables are separated so that guests need to schedule breakfast in order to accommodate everyone. We appreciate that they take Covid seriously.

We’d thought we would do the City Walk from Rick Steves but also thought that we could change plans if need be. With that in mind, we picked ourselves up and started to walk. We walked first to the train station, where the walk started and immediately found a concert we wanted to attend, but alas, we didn’t make it this evening.

A house along the walk that leans like the tower of Pisa

From the train station we walked down the hill, stopping to look at one thing or another, but then we had to stop and buy Vlaamse Friets (French Fries from Vlaamse) with mayo, something that we have loved eating in Belgium. These were just as good and a fix since it has been forever since we were in Belgium.

After taking a break and eating our friets we continued on the City Walk, stopping in Begijnhof. There are associations with the Pilgrims who came to America at this church that we found interesting. Additionally, the oldest house in Amsterdam is located in here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Reformed_Church,_Amsterdam

The Church in the Begijnhof believed to be where the Pilgrims worshiped before leaving for the New World

The oldest wood house in Amsterdam from 1420 and is still being used

We did stop to buy a museum pass at the Niuwe Church which is only 100 years younger than the Oude Church.

We walked on, but then Rick Steves told us to stop and take the slanty elevator up to the top floor of a shopping mall. We did as we were told and found a wonderful 360 view of the city. The elevator reminded us a little of one to the top of the Eiffel Tower. There we had Irish Coffee with lots of Irish!

A view from the top. The tower with the globe thing is the Mint Tower

Feeling much relaxed we were going to continue our walk when we realized that it was nearly 5pm. We needed to go by the concert hall and just check on our tickets for tomorrow night’s concert. So, as the walk was nearly completed, we hurried down to the concert hall.

Having verified how to get our tickets tomorrow night we returned to the Flower District, on the City Walk. It was on our way back to the hotel anyway. As we were walking along, I noticed a small, hole-in-the-wall restaurant that said they had gluten free pancakes. Now pancakes are a really big deal here. There are many pancake restaurants and I’d told Dale earlier that we should stop sometime so he could get some. Well now we could both eat pancakes.

The Flower district

As we were standing outside the restaurant the owner came out and we started talking. We told him that we were actually trying to find the herring as referenced in the guide. He pointed out the herring stand, and explained that we needed to come in the morning when the herring stand is open with fresh herring. We said that we’d walk around and come back for pancakes.

We came back to the Pancake Company, after walking around the canal. The owner made us special pancakes, little dollar size ones with fresh fruit, ice cream and whipped cream. OMG!!!!! We must go back.

We were very proud of our diet today! Potatoes (friets), dairy products (Irish Coffee with lots whipped cream), dairy products in the form of whipped cream and ice cream and fruit with our pancakes. Dairy products include lots of calcium, protein and the all-essential trace minerals plus fresh fruit. Good thing we don’t eat like this at home every day. But on the plus side, we did walk over 5 miles today, so we hopefully, walked off all of the fat, or some of it.

Settling Into Amsterdam

 

A flight into Amsterdam is nice, everything is so green. The customs go quickly and were so easy. And after the hassles with the PLF forms in Chicago, the customs agents didn’t even want to see them.

Of course, there must be a malcontent somewhere. There was a man and woman a few people behind us in line, so that we were within earshot every few minutes. The guy was talking about immigrants when he saw some women obviously of another religion. He started talking about Biden and our immigrants and these immigrants. Then it was Covid, it wasn’t real, couldn’t trust the CDC, wondering if the Netherlands was a free country. The US is a free country. On and on. The other people around him started rolling their eyes. We just laughed at him with eye rolls, when we’d hear him but I don’t think he even noticed. The woman with him, at one point, told him to quit talking but he didn’t. My comment to Dale was “why did he come, why not just stay in the US”? He, unfortunately, is the kind that make us all look like ugly Americans. But we will do our best to fit in, speak a few Dutch words, and try to change the perception.

We’d paid extra to upgrade our hotel room to include a view of the canal. I’d read a few complaints so was a little concerned but figured we’d make the best of it. Our room, as it turns out, has nearly a wall of windows. The view in the day is really nice, at night it is beautiful with all of the lights on in the flats across the canal.

View from our room, including dish towels that I carry so that we can eat in. They were made by a cousin Barbra, who I write this blog for.

When we arrived at the hotel I was starving, having had little besides salads and a little container of yogurt. The woman who checked us in said that they serve breakfast until noon. She went and spoke with the people at the breakfast area and arranged for us to go in and eat. I was able to get a full meal before starting our day.

As we will be here for the next 2 weeks, we got unpacked and settled in. From our window we could see people walking across a bridge and decided that we’d go at least around the block. We ended up walking even further, peaking into a church built in the early 1600’s, having coffee at a little shop, looking in the local grocery store and wine store.

An old church built in the 1600's

One of the women at the front desk told me that there isn’t really any Dutch cuisine, but that they are a soup country. We did find a soup restaurant and got 2 different types to go. The woman working there said that there are different soups every day. Today we got a Tuscan Tomato and a Spanish sausage soup to go. They went well with our wine. We will likely be back and this is not from from where we will be coming and going.

The view from our room at night

An old building from the 1600's that is now a tavern

A view of the canal

 

Amsterdam, We Are On Our Way

 As I write this particular blog, we are on an airplane flight to Amsterdam. So, it won’t be posted until after we are settled into our motel room, sometime tonight, whenever tonight is.

This trip came about when we were in Portland, so long ago. When? I have no idea but would need to look at my photos. It is a fact of life that, if it were not for photos, I’d have no idea where we were whenever. But it is a fact that we’d planned a trip to Oregon and then our truck was stolen, so we flew to Portland. We salvaged our trip to see our grandkids, and kids.

While we were in Portland, actually sitting on our son and daughter-in-law’s couch, I got an email from United. It was United’s 40’th birthday and we could book a trip, that day only, for specific places for 40,000 frequent flier miles. I’d turned to Dale and asked should we fly to Amsterdam or Ireland. Then we both agreed that Amsterdam was interesting and I booked our flights.

Now, several months later, we are in a plane, flying from Chicago to Amsterdam. In the meantime, we have read travel books, looked at on-line travel sites, and on our way.

The trip in itself has been quite the adventure. We had to fly in and out of San Francisco, which isn’t the end of the world. We love San Francisco, looked around to move here several years ago, but haven’t originated our flights from there.

Packed and ready to go

We drove to San Francisco on Sunday, but wanted to check out the park and fly lots. We wanted to make sure of what we needed to do on Monday a.m. We found our motel and a park and fly lot just on the other side of the highway. Before checking into the motel, we went to the lot and I verified that we could come in the morning with no problem. We didn’t need a reservation. “Don’t worry, you can self-park”. Well, the “Don’t Worry” should have been the signal to worry!

We went to our hotel, opened a bottle of wine and ate the dinner I’d made some time ago and froze. We slept, I made myself a Greek Salad, in the event there was no gluten free food on the plane, repacked our stuff and off we went to the airport parking lot.

Well, what we were not told that without a reservation, the parking is with valet only and the price jumps. Unfortunately, we needed to get to the airport, so had no choice. Then Dale understood the parking valet to say that it was $100.00 a day so he is thinking $1,400.00 for the 2 weeks. I heard $19.99 a day, which was higher than the $12.99 a day I saw on-line so I’m saying just forget about the money. We need to get to the airport as our flight is in 3 hours. I was right, Dale misheard but it really didn’t matter at that point in time; $100 or $19.99, we had to leave the truck and get to the airport. The price was $19.99.

Sushi at SFO

I love large airports. We are TSA approved and makes it easy, a few short lines, lots of help. We made it onto the plane to Chicago, our stop before Amsterdam.

In Chicago, we didn’t have much time to get to our next gate. Then, we didn’t see Amsterdam on the board but a United person saw it and pointed it out.

Once at the gate in Chicago we had to go thru another screening. This time for our passports, boarding passes, Covid vaccine cards and a Passenger Locater Form. I’d searched for these instructions before leaving home as I’d filled out these PLF forms for every country on our very recent Europe trip. I did not find any instructions on United or the Netherlands.gov site.

So here we were, we could not get on our flight until the PLF was filled out. However, the United personal did not have any forms and these particular ones could not be filled out on-line, unlike Italy, Greece and France. Then several other passengers who did not have the forms showed up in the line and none of us were not happy campers. Fortunately, a United employee thought to go print the forms, he brought them back, we filled them out and were on our way. But it was a few harrowing minutes.

We did feel badly for the several people who showed up with the wrong Covid test results. The test requirements had recently changed so people were going to miss the flight due to getting the wrong tests. The correct tests were being given somewhere in the airport but we don’t know if the passengers got the tests and results done in time.

I’d made a Greek Salad with tomatoes, cucumbers and feta cheese I’d brought from home, the tomatoes and cucumbers from our son. Sure enough, there was no gluten free food on our flight from San Francisco to Chicago so I had my salad. I’d cut up extra tomato and cucumber so added those to my olive oil and Modena Balsamic vinegar in Chicago.

Once on the plane to Amsterdam, we had lots of time, as we have an early boarding code. I asked the flight attendant if any of the dinners were gluten free. She came back and said no, verified by another flight attendant who said she had verified as she is celiac as well. I figured I’d eat the rest of my Greek Salad.

As it turned out the flight attendants put together a meal of green salad, potato chips and gummy bears for me. It was really sweet and nice to have something besides a warm Greek Salad. I’ll be sending a nice review for them!

For now, we are on our 2^nd’ small bottle of wine. Going to sleep because we will get into Amsterdam in the morning, their time. Until tomorrow!