Arrival in Amsterdam

On the train from the station

A flight that leaves Vancouver at 6:00 pm gets you into Amsterdam at 12:15 pm local time - which sounds just fine until you realize that that is 3:15 am Vancouver time. Add to that the fact that neither of us slept on the plane and you have two very tired travellers attempting to locate a hotel in Amsterdam, dragging luggage, that, though very light compared to most travellers, was nevertheless heavy to drag behind you. (I am proud of the fact that our two suitcases together weighed in at less than 25 kilos.) Sadly, I didn't even snap a photo of the impressive Amsterdam Centraal train station that is a beautiful building. Stewart insisted that to succumb to sleep immediately would only further throw off our sleep schedules - but I said I would only take a short nap. Now it is about three hours later, I'm starving and Stewart...
Stewart is fast asleep. 

This hotel room is the smallest I have ever stayed in - bear in mind I have never been to Japan.  The room is about 8 foot by 8 foot, with a small bathroom.  There isn't even a place to put down the suitcases properly.  The window overlooks a very small atrium, and we have two windows on both 90 degree angles to our room, less than 4 feet away.  We have two nights here and then off to Venice.

Trial run...

Currently in Seattle - have brought Stewart down here to put him on the plane to his summer camp just outside Spokane. I thought this would be a good test run to try out the netbook as a tool for blogging while abroad. It is a very small computer and very light, so great to travel with, but the processing speed is abysmal. So long as I don't inadvertently launch some programme, this might actually be successful. The drive down was fairly easy, with mum and Kerry to help navigate, we found the hotel easily and went out for dinner at "California Pizza Kitchen". Guess whose idea that was. In any case, there were lots of items on the menu besides pizza, so we all ate well. Tomorrow we put the boy on the plane and then head out to do some shopping. No exciting travel photos as yet, so I will put up this recent knitting project.