Arrival: The Netherlands
Jenny and I are on a bit of a holiday right now. I had the opportunity to go to The Netherlands, and Jenny was able to come with me, so we’re making a trip of it. We’re in Noordwijk for a few days, then spending the rest of our time in Amsterdam. We arrived Wednesday morning at 7AM local time (EDT+6).
Our cab ride was pleasant, but the driver didn’t tell us that his credit card machine was not working until after we arrived at the hotel. We had exchanged some cash for Euros when we got to the airport, but not nearly enough for the 62-ish Euro cab fare. Fortunately, the hotel was able to give us the Euros for the fare and just add it to our hotel bill, so we did that. Oh well. I’m also not sure what we should be tipping here, so I gave the driver a few Euros as a tip. He didn’t spit on us or anything, so maybe that was acceptable.
We spent a good bit of today catching-up on some sleep (the plane allowed for some sleep, but the time difference still took a bit of getting used-to), and doing some exploring of the local area. We found a shopping area near here with a bunch of shops, then got temporarily lost in a residential area. Most all of the local streets are paved with brick or stone, and the local streets are tiny. We ate lunch at a pancake house (think “american” crepes–both sweet and savoury varieties available). Their special was tomato soup, a pancake, and ice cream to finish. Jenny had salami, tomato and cheese pancake, and I had a bacon, onion and cheese pancake. Everything was quite good. The iced tea was a little odd and on the expensive side (it was Lipton, but oddly somewhat carbonated), so I think we’ll stick to pop and tap water. They took credit cards there, so we did that. It was an extra e1,5 for the card charge, but that was easier for the day. On our way back to the hotel, I decided to try an experiment, and used my local bank card to withdraw Euros from our account. Woot–it worked. I wasn’t sure. I thought it would, it seemed like it should, but I had no idea.
After lunch, we came back up to the hotel. We spent some time looking at the North Sea from the hotel’s beachfront patio, then discovered that the door to the outside had locked behind us. With fencing that we were unable to surmount on both sides of the large hotel beachfront complex, we were starting to wonder how we’d get back inside. The main door was under construction and was unusable. We were walking around looking for an open door when we saw some other guests near the door (which was clearly marked as the door we should be using, by the way), and we were able to have them let us back inside. Yay! Saved from the wind and rain.
While we were outside, I took a few pictures of the sea. Unfortunately, after arriving back in the room, it looks like the camera battery is dead. This is quite surprising, as the battery normally lasts for days of shooting, and I had charged it immediately before we left. Of course, I forgot the charger at home, so it looks like I might be visiting the local camera store to see if I can buy another charger. Argh. I’m going to see if the battery will charge from the USB connection overnight. That would be good, but I’m not holding out too much hope. It’s not a big problem right now, of course–the reason that brought me here is going to keep me busy for the next two days, so I won’t be out exploring the local area much more.
Interesting stuff to note:
- I like coined money.
- Euros look cool.
- Watching TV and listening to radio in other languages is fun. Hearing the little English bits inside announcements is amusing.
- Listening to English-language programs and trying to match words up with the Dutch subtitles is a fun game.
- Stuff is expensive here, especially given the crappy exchange rate right now.
- It is really windy right now.
We’ll have more interesting stuff to note later. At the moment, I need to figure out how to make our alarm clock work, then we need to get to sleep.
jonathan
