Tour of Holland - Day 1/Day 2

Ron and I left Houston at about 4 pm on May first.  I'm not sure why this is counted as day one of our ten day tour.  It's a travel day not a tour day in my mind but it's counted anyway.  Our nonstop flight from Houston to Amsterdam was full and we were about 45 minutes late leaving the gate but otherwise it was completely uneventful.  As usual, the attention we received was wonderful - they kept coming by and offering us more food.  We arrived in Amsterdam about 15 minutes early this morning.  We got through immigration quickly, found our bags and hailed a cab to the hotel. 

We will only be at this hotel for one night and will then transfer to our refurbished river barge.  Tonight we have solid floors that won't rock and a big restaurant.  I'll let you know how the barge looks when we get there.

The hotel was very welcoming but check-out time is 3 pm and we arrived about 9:30 am so our room wasn't ready.  I slept several hours on the plane so I'm feeling pretty good.  Ron doesn't sleep well on planes so he arrived at the hotel exhausted.  We spent about an hour in the lobby before they found a room for us.  Not bad at all considering we could have waited closer to six hours.

The little we have seen of Amsterdam so far is lovely.  It's cool and overcast but everything is green.  The cab driver joked about them painting everything green in the spring.  You might almost believe it.

The trees are tall and the grass is green. 

Our hotel is in a residential area so the streets are fairly narrow and quiet. It will be nice to take a walk around later.  The streets right outside are covered seeds. I have no idea what they are but may be able to find out.

As I write this, Ron is taking a nap.  We will get some lunch when he gets up.  We have a Welcome Dinner this evening and will tour around Amsterdam tomorrow ending up at the barge for dinner.

I haven't been able to figure out how to make my email work.  Microsoft is so security conscious these days that you need a code number to open it if you are someplace strange.  I guess its for my own protection but it's driving me nuts.  For now I'll just keep writing this blog.