July 13-15

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One hour before we were supposed to leave to catch our bus to Montreal International Airport, we got an email from KLM that our flight was cancelled, no reason given. Say what? Luckily there appeared to be some options, so we ended up changing to Air France (same company), but the plane would leave an hour earlier, we’d have to fly through Paris, and would arrive in Amsterdam about 2 hours later. At least that was better than waiting until the following day. We could have been a bit pressed for time at Montreal but luckily we’re able to catch an earlier bus.

As we got on the plane, I realized there are different kinds of people when it comes to personal hygiene. Person A practices good hygiene and will realize when others don’t. Person B does not practice good hygiene, or does not have the sensory capability to realize its effects, or does not realize others may perceive this, or may try and hide the effects with copious doses of fragrant products, or simply does not care if others are affected. Our plane holds what I believe to be close to 500 people of which a good number are of the B type. Six hours into the flight, only Benadryl will calm Person A’s sinuses.

Air France provides good service. We don’t have to pay for dinner, breakfast or wine. Yeah. We arrived in Paris at about 6am their time, which is about midnight our time. So much for sleep. We had to wait about 2.5 hours to get on to our 45 minute flight to Amsterdam. We still got there before 10am, good timing for our rental pickup. Not the Volkswagen Up! as we expected, but a Toyota Aygo. Nice little car with Bluetooth and cruise and manual shift for gas economy. We complain in Canada about the price of gas, but I’m over that for now, paying as much as $2.70 per litre here. Hence the small car.

Our AirBnb place in Eindhoven is gorgeous and our hosts great! Like most people here, they speak English very well but I get to practice my Dutch when Marion is napping. Stocked up on Glenfidich at about $30 for a bottle, some good wines and a few beer at really good prices. We visited my sisters Toni and Annemie as a priority over the first two days here, last time I saw them was in 2015.

Not sure what happened to my GPS. We used it to get here and the next day it was no longer able to pick up a GPS signal. Good thing I was able to pick up a Vodafone SIM card for $30 with 6G of data. It may last the month, it may not.

It’s now Monday evening 10pm. Still about 20 more minutes before dark. I’ll end this post here.

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Photos

Salt herring. Yum.
Always served with raw onions. Need mouthwash!

Sunset in Eindhoven
Looking out our bedroom window at 10:20pm.

Circular stairway to our apartment.
Marion will never again complain about our basement stairs!

Comments

[Erwin]

greetings from Oz
It's great to read about your travel experiences. Thank you for sharing. You are too late in the season for fresh herring, the Dutch variant of sushi. Don't miss the Dieze boat tour when visiting Den Bosch, a favourite of ours whenever we are in that beautiful city.

[FerdyandMarioninOz]

Down Under
Thanks Erwin. Hope to see your sister and mom for sure.

[Mary Ellen]

hi from northern ontario/mem:)
Hi Marion and Ferdy! Glad you made it to Amsterdam for the beer, burgers and cheese. I wouldn't mind a painting of the trees in Vondel Park. ...How do you find time to paint Marion with all your travels............take care............mem

[Louise Smith]

airline woes
Good thing you got the email and were able to read it before leaving Montreal. I love travelling but the getting there and back is the worst part. It's great that your meals were included. We got cups of tea and water on WestJet to Dublin. We ate a good meal before leaving and ate soon after getting off the plane in the morning. I love following your blog. Louise