Always the Wrong Side

25 June 2009

View from our room

When I checked in yesterday, the receptionist told me I could have breakfast at the hotel for €18 instead of 20. Since I had not had an opportunity to stock up at the buffet on the ship because of our early debarkation, I decided to go ahead and do that.

Canal from the restaurant

Breakfast was a really big spread, bigger than a Hampton Inn even.

Buffet

There were hot hard boiled eggs, bacon, scrambled eggs,

Breakfast eggs

About 15 kinds of fruit from melon and peaches to prunes

yogurt, a toaster to make toast,

Various kinds of Bread on the buffet

Three kinds of cold cereal

Croissant and butter

Jars of jam etc. on the buffet

Cold meats and cheese (and butter)

Tea

coffee, milk and juice.

We packed and left the hotel just at noon. They called a cab driver for us to take us to the railroad station although everyone keeps telling me I should take the streecar. NOT

The cab driver wanted us to pay him €180 to take us to Amsterdam but I didn't accept so he dropped us on the back side of the station. My bag got very very heavy while we were on the ship. My bag got very very heavy while we were on the ship. I later calculated that it was about 53 pounds.

When I tried to buy a ticket, none of the ticket machines would take a US credit card, so I had to walk from the back of the station to the front to get tickets. Eventually I left B with the bags and walked up to the money exchange area. It has gotten warm and was sunny, so I was drenched with sweat when I got there, and the lady in the booth gave me a packet of towelettes kind of thing - they were printed with $100 bills (Ben Franklin's face). The train tickets were € 26 each but then they gave us the wrong directions to the train. There were steps to go up to get to the platform and I just can't carry my bag and neither can B.

Rotterdam train station

Every time someone helped me (and they did), they basically had trouble lifting my bag. It was very stressful and tiring. Because of the wrong directions, we ended up on the local train instead of the fast train. But I was not going to go up steps and down steps to get to the fast train and I didn't really care as long as I got to Amsterdam. We went through Utrecht.

My granddaughter holds the Towelette with $100 bills on it

From the train

We went the wrong direction in Amsterdam too and ended up at the back of the station instead of the front where we could have gotten a cab. One of the cabs that had come to pick up specific people called another cab for me, and he did take us to the hotel.

Bus lanes

Built on the foundations of the 13th -century castle Heeren van Aemstel, this hotel (also called the Golden Tulip) is on a pedestrian area called Kolkplein. It is within walking distance (for other people) of Amsterdam Central Station, and it is only 20 minutes from Schiphol International Airport.

All 239 air-conditioned rooms include an ensuite bath/shower, toilet and hairdryer.

Bathroom

Granddaughter coming out of the bathroom

The rooms are installed with a worldwide direct dial telephone system, and safe with personal code. The hotel has a breakfast room, but we didn't get breakfast because it was expensive. We were on the 5th floor, and the room was nice. It has twin beds

Single bed

and a mini-fridge in addition to the basket of snacks. You also need your card to operate the elevator and the electricity in the room. I was able to log onto the internet. Some people were in an adjacent building. We could look down from the room on the back alley where there was a pedestrian bridge over to that building.

looking down at the pedestrian bridge from our room

Sometimes tour groups - all wearing the same color shirt would walk along the street below us.

Group in the street below

The colour television had in-house movie channels, bill view, a system for personal messages and an information channel. We were able to find a lot of English shows with Dutch subtitles to watch on the TV. We've seen Oprah, Dr. Phil and the Cosby show - also Monk.

Granddaughter taking her photo in the mirror

I logged onto the internet and we rested up.

Granddaughter hiding her head

We skipped lunch and when we went out to the front of the hotel and there was a quite lively scene with people eating and drinking and music and all kinds of stuff.

Five Bells and people eating outside

From our dinner table

B wanted pizza, so we went to the Five Bells Bar and got pepperoni pizza and

WIngs

We had virgin drinks which came in glasses which were in the shape of ladies

Woman shaped glass

We had ice cream concoctions for dessert.

Dessert

Bill for dinner

The cost was € 39.50. I took only 84 pictures and B took less.