2002 Spring Euro Tour

Amsterdam

Tuesday, June 25 - A beautiful friendly city, we usually make Amsterdam our destination for our Euro travels. It's normally cheaper for flight and car rentals, and for those who travel by train, any destination is possible. It is not necessary to make hotel reservations before the trip, as a stop at the tourist service counter in Schiphol's airport will find the best price and availability for a hotel for the night. The located The Park Hotel, right in downtown Amsterdam for $70 for the night, a good price since we arrived on a Tuesday. The room was small, but adequate, with a balcony overlooking the street and rooftop apartment gardens. This was charming but noisy, and my handy earplugs, which are always in my travel bag, worked like a charm.

We were tired from the all night flight, but still not ready to sleep, so we walked into the area of the flower market, where there is an electrical store call Aurora. I picked up a euro cord for my computer, so I do not have to use the adaptors. Also, you know you are truly a world traveler when you have a euro hair dryer and curling iron! It's not expensive, and worth not burning your hair using adaptors with the American version. The electrical current is a higher and sometimes sends more current to your American appliances than you would like.

Back in the hotel, with earplugs in and curtains drawn, a long 3-hour nap, undid the kinks from the long cramped flight. A short walk from the hotel brought us to an area with several blocks of restaurants from many nations. We selected a Dutch restaurant, and had a wonderful dinner of ostrich steak, and prawns. Then it was off to an Internet Cafe to check e-mail. I had attempted to connect to my AOL account in the Hotel, which I keep for international travel. I had recently purchased a new laptop with Windows XP, and discovered, that while it was loaded with AOL 6.0, Windows XP only recognized AOL 7.0 for international connections. I expected problems, and knew it might be tricky this trip. Our readers might not get HorsesDaily, and DressageDaily on a daily basis, but I would continue to gather material, and catch up when I could.