Pancakes and Jet Lag

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Here I am, writing from my hotel room in Mother Russia! I made it to St. Petersburg, unfortunatley my luggage did not. My roll along is stuck in Amsterdam and after alot of red tape, it is supposed to be delivered to my room tomorrow evening. Luckily, I took a picture of it before I checked it. That made it easy to describe it to the lost and found lady at the airport. Just a quick "it looks like this"! Fingers crossed...

Apart from the stray bag, everything else went pretty smoothly. The flights were all on time. Watched two movies which I hadn't seen before while crossing the ocean. Got in to Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands at around 6:30 this morning. I put my carry-on bag in a locker and jumped on a train to Amsterdam Centraal Station. The train only takes about 15 minutes, and leaves you right in middle of town (hence the Centraal).
I just walked around for several hours, but not much is open before 9:00. The Blumenmark (floating flower market) was open, but was mostly Tulip bulbs this time of year. I did find a great little Dutch diner and had my pancakes (ham and cheese) and a cup of wonderful hot chocolate with whipped cream. My tongue is still burned from the chocolate.

Back to the airport and on to St. Petersburg. Pulkovo Airport is fine. Lines at immigration went quickly and then I hit the luggage SNAFU. Papers filled out in quadruplicate, then out into the cold Russian night. They had snow all day, but it had turned to a drizzling rain by the time I got there. The bus stop is right outside the terminal doors. I jumped in a minibus and rode to the nearest Metro station.

Wow, my first experience with Russian Metro systems! Deep escalator rides, ornate stations and tons of hurrying people. I'm still trying to get the hang of the cyrillic signage, so that was interesting. It feels weird not being able to read signs all of a sudden. Plus the fact that I still haven't even seen a station name on any of those platforms. I just had to count the number of stops from a subway map and hope for the best.

Everything worked out and I made it to my hotel. I'm at the Nevsky Express Hotel, directly on Nevsky Prospect (the main drag) and right around the corner from the Moscovsy Train Station (where I catch my night train to Moscow in a few days). So far I am very happy with the hotel and my room. Plus it has pretty decent wi-fi, so I was able to Skype calls a few people.

Well the jet-lag is hitting pretty hard. I keep nodding off and leaving lines of the same letter across the page. Time to go to sleeppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp

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Photos

Welcome to Amsterdam
Morning in Dam Square

Pancakes
Mmmm, Ham and Cheese!

Euro Pack!
I don't know who this guy is, but I like his shirt!

Comments

[shu]

hey mikey -- mmmmmm.
pancakes look yummy ! just checking in with quick trial here as last message crashed ... more to come ...

[casey]

Great pictures. We'll have to put that one next to the Beef o rama picture. Hope You got some sleep, I'm sure you have big days planed. Keep the picture coming. Be safe and have a great time.