Blogs from Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands, Europe - page 11

I am currently winging my way back home. I flew from Athens to Amsterdam yesterday evening and this morning boarded a nonstop to PDX. (I spent the night at the Hilton airport hotel in Amsterdam.) This has been another good trip. The high points included Japan, especially seeing Kyoto for the first time. I can see why people get deeply involved in Japanese gardens. There is something compelling yet restful about them. I’m glad to have visited Beijing, especially the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace, but I will not be in a hurry to return to China. Cambodia was the unexpected high point of the trip. I loved Siem Reap and visiting the Angkor sites. Bangkok struck me as a big modern city with some worthwhile sights and I might try to go back there ... read more

Traveling is addictive. I know, because I’m willing to spend money I don’t have, dismiss my family and my job to disappear on a whim, and tolerate loads of discomfort and pain just to get my fix. I’m so deep in, there’s no kicking it now. Hello, my name is Andrea, and I’m a travel junkie. According to the cartoons of my childhood, teleporting should be a thing by now. But it’s not. So, layovers have become my essential travel tool. Those long haul 18+ hours flights, seated in coach, are the true definition of hell. But. Can’t stop. Won’t stop. I love Amsterdam and it has become my preferred halfway point for any African or Middle Eastern excursion. Years ago, I loathed this stopover and I simply referred to Schiphol as Shit Hole. Then one ... read more

After 18 months of travelling we headed home to spend exactly one month in the Netherlands. What a month! We were looking forward to and needed some serious TLC from our loved ones, as most of them we had not seen for 1,5 years. Being in the Netherlands as part of our travels was quite an intense experience. On a daily basis we have met for dinner, drinks, a coffee or tea or lunch with different friends and family. Some of it planned, because we wanted to make sure that we could spend sufficient quality time with them, but we also left time open for spontaneous meet ups. We felt loved by our friends and we felt at home with our families. We laughed, drank wine (a lot!), we ate great food (a lot!), partied. We ... read more

We knew the day was going to be long, what we didn’t know was it was going to become 2 days. Neither of us slept well. Susan still didn’t feel great after last night and then we had to wake up early so that we could get on the shuttle to the airport. We arrived at the airport and we were the only ones from Viking taking TAROM air (the Romanian airline) Almost everyone else was on British Air. We got to the check-in desk and she checked me in and said, “you will have to pick up your bags in Detroit”. Wait, our flight is thru JFK. Originally it was thru Detroit but when a schedule change happened that gave us 15 minutes in Detroit to go thru customs, go thru immigration and passport control, ... read more

Today was our last full day of the trip. Once again we slept in and left the house at midday, but this time we headed straight to the grocery store instead of to a restaurant. We were off to have a picnic in Vondelpark! On the way we found a cute little doughnut shop so we got a few treats from here, then at the grocery store we filled the bags with rolls, cheese and biscuits, grapes, strawberries, water, chips, and stroopwafels (Dutch treats). We headed off to Vondelpark and had a lovely few hours eating and playing cards and experiencing all the sounds and smells of Vondelpark (pigeons cooing and marijuana, respectively). After this we headed to the iAmsterdam sign, where we climbed on top of it and got some awesome photos! It wasn’t very ... read more