ghost_light | Amsterdam

Our flights were, by and large, uneventful. Neither of us really slept and I spent most of the trip reading Mental Floss magazine (thanks Geolinguist!) I love that magazine so much I read every word of it, even the ads.

The in-flight meals were okay. Dinner was pasta with a pesto sauce and a terribly sad salad. Breakfast was kind of German breakfast, cold cuts, cheese and breads, but with fruit instead of an egg. I nearly squealed when I saw that. I'd nearly forgotten about German breakfast!

When we were in Germany in '98 we stumbled into a little guesthouse in Stuttgart. I nearly mean stumbled too. We picked it out of the guidebook and

LonelyDumptruck called for reservations (I speak NO German) but, when we got to Stuttgart, the cabbie had no idea how to get to the guesthouse. I think it took three of them having a conference in the middle of the street to work out where to go. Turns out the address is wrong in the book!

The guesthouse was run by an adorable couple, the Schneiders. Mr. Schneider spoke some English and would come chat with

LonelyDumptruck at meals. Mrs. Schneider spoke about as much English as I spoke German but BOY did she like to feed us! Every breakfast brought plates full of cold cuts I'd never tried before, like mortadella, fresh cheeses, a soft boiled egg and homemade bread. If I ate all of anything on a plate, Mrs. Schneider brought out another full plate. I thought I was going to have to kill her to avoid getting thirds one morning!

Anyway, we made it to Frankfurt easily. Our layover was a couple hours, but we decided to relax and have sausages and beer at the airport rather than rush into town and risk missing our connecting flight to Amsterdam.

I slept most of the flight to Amsterdam, which never happens. We wandered a bit trying to find the hotel, but it was easier than getting around in '98 (yay internet directions!). The hotel is tiny and kind of funky. I booked us a "small double" and that is some truth in advertising! The reviews mentioned that the stairs were steep, but we didn't worry since that applies to pretty much everything we saw last time we were in Amsterdam....holy God, people, wait until you see the pictures of the stairs!!

After we got settled in and cleaned up a bit, we went out to look around for a while and get some beer and dinner. There are a lot of places around the hotel (I wanted somewhere kind of central) but we ended up walking for two hours and got delightfully lost trying to find our way back. It was a blast!

Every other place is an Argentinian steak house, but we ended up getting donner kebabs from a takeaway and finished up the night having a beer at the open-air place next door. Being so close to the bar that we could call our order down from the window means it was pretty loud last night, but I slept like the dead.

More to come!

Posted via LiveJournal app for Android.