Blogs from North Holland, Netherlands, Europe - page 12

This turns out to be a travel day more than anything else. Of course John took the opportunity to rent a bike and wander the streets of Hamburg looking for the harbor. He got lost a few times and ended up going in the wrong direction. Only the sight of the hotel (26 stories) in the distance was able to bring him home for breakfast with Peggy. Afterwards, John went to the Convention for an hour to visit with a few people and try out the virtual reality headpiece for End Polio Now. Then packing and making our way to the railway station where we had an uninspiring lunch and waited for the train which was late. The only way to Amsterdam is a change at Duisburg so we were careful not to miss what is ... read more

Today we were fortunate to have a beautiful, mostly sunny day and so took the opportunity today to relive some our favorite experiences from our stay here 10 years ago. We took our map of Haarlem and went on our own self-guided tour to locate some of the "secret" hofje (alms houses built in the 1500's and 1600's to provide housing for the poor. Even then the Dutch had a solution for the homeless. The we hiked to a park that had the reputation for the best pannenkoeken in town. Found some great apple fritters to complement afternoon coffee and had cheese and bread with Dutch beer for our pre-dinner "snack". Fortunately we had a modest bowl of soup for dinner - which we then topped of with gelato. It is a real good thing that ... read more

Dinner at the Vintage Room: At 7 we met in the Vintage Room, a small private dining room with wine coolers along the forward wall. There were eight of us, Fran, me and the youngsters; two brothers, Jim and Craig, their wives, Shelley and Sharon, and Craig's best friend, Bill and his wife, Kim. The two brothers live in Olympia, Washington and Bill and Kim, in Walla Walla, the “Onion Capital” of the west. The men all grew up together. They’ve lived in Washington or Northern Idaho their entire lives. All three of them own their own businesses. Jim owns a real estate brokerage company with 40 some brokers. Craig owns a company that makes and sells gaskets. And Bill owns a company that makes cardboard boxes. The spouses have always been stay-at-home moms, but they ... read more

This is the second day, if you're trying to keep up. Still in Amsterdam. Not yet on board. No cruise yet. That will come later. We're still at the Conservatorium, but now we've checked out of the hotel and went to the the ship which was docked on the other side of the city. It took a long time to get there. Traffic in Amsterdam is rough and getting rougher. Streets are being narrowed from four lanes to two lanes to accommodate the millions of bikes. Apparently there is 1.3 bikes per person in the Netherlands, a ratio that reminds me of guns in the US. Check in at The Debussy was painless. Our suite was ready. It’s not big; a bed, desk, 1 chair, a closet and a nice bathroom. The ship is new in ... read more

Most of you know I have no problem going on trips by myself. But take a look at this survey on Travel Pulse: Solo travel is increasingly popular but, according to a new Allianz Global Assistance survey, there are still many people who have yet to travel alone. The survey found that 30.4 percent of Americans say they have never traveled alone, and those who have are more than five times as likely to travel domestically rather than internationally. The survey also found that most respondents who said that they had traveled solo had done so for business, rather than for pleasure. Just over 27 percent said that they traveled alone on a domestic business trip while 21 pe... read more