[January 14 through 18, Amsterdam, The Netherlands]
I was booking travel to Tucson, AZ to visit my dad and everyone there. My friend Lauren at work was talking about Amsterdam so I was just checking prices on the airfare. Guess what, the flight to Amsterdam was cheaper than flying to Tucson! Airline pricing is the worst; right next to used car salesmen – maybe worse. So, I decided to go to Amsterdam 🙂
I cut the flights close. Like two hour layovers across all stops. Nothing like living dangerously! Woke up at 5:00am, went to work. Went from work to airport. Well great, plane from DCA to ORD was late. Ug. It’s always late! Well, the pilot made up a LOT of time in the air, so I got to ORD in time. In time, that is, to find out the ORD to LHR flight was delayed! What!? That’s critical – at LHR, the plane NEVER lands on time because of congestion, on top of that, I have to go from Terminal 3 to Terminal 5 via (stupid, slow, not enough) bus(ses) and go through security all over again – I won’t make it!
You’re saying, wait, why are you flying backwards toward ORD when you are going to Europe? Well, the northeast coast airports are too close to Europe so you basically get enough sleep on the plane, so I fly backwards to get more sleep on the Atlantic flight. This is especially needed because I am going to get about zero sleep over the entire weekend. You thought my flights were tight, I booked four tours (I always do tours the first time I am at a new place) in three days. Crazy. But I digress…
The ORD to LHR pilot made it early and shockingly we landed after only one loop over London. Phew! I know, you are saying why didn’t you go direct from the US to AMS airport? Well, I thought it would be cool to take the train to the coast from London, take a ferry to The Netherlands and get to my hotel. Well, the ferry doesn’t go to Amsterdam, it goes to The Hague – which would lose way too much time to make it to my dinner cruise in Amsterdam, so I bought the LHR to AMS ticket to make up the time. Continuing, I land in LHR, breeze through customs (I am a UK Registered Traveler), hop on the bus (line was still not full, yay) and made it to Terminal 5, hopped on the plane and got to AMS.
Hopped on the AMS airport to Amsterdam Centraal rail which is right within the airport complex (I bought the ticket online, I suggest you do the same) and got to Amsterdam Centraal. Okay done right? Nope, I got turned around in the station and went in the wrong direction. I backtracked and found an information booth (and they speak English, phew!!!) and got to my hotel. Checked in and I am kinda-sorta exhausted. RULE NUMBER 1 – don’t sit down and don’t ever lie down or you will zone out cold within 5 seconds! So now I am thinking, I have to get to my cruise. I have to shower (recall I woke up yesterday at 5:00am US Eastern and it’s not 6:00pm Amsterdam time). I said, good grief, I have to take a shower, so I do; get a fresh set of clothes on and off to the cruise!
From here, you can follow the pictures to get the story. I took over 1000 pictures and narrowed it down to 355. That’s still a lot. Hopefully you will like them. Click on th picture below or the link and the photo page will pop up 🙂
Whirlwind Trip to Amsterdam