Nearly everything took longer than usual this morning. First of all the captain did make up some time flying across the pond, but inevitably the gate was occupied, so we were forced to sit on the tarmac until we were once again one hour late.
I skipped the bathroom and went straight to passport control. There was a bit of a queue, but it was moving. They asked me why I was there and I said I was taking a cruise, and then they asked which ship. They were satisfied with my responses and stamped my passport.
Once I got to baggage claim I visited the bathroom and had time to write a short book by the time my luggage came out. I checked the time and it was an hour after the plane arrived at the gate that my bag made it to the belt.
Luckily before I left Dallas I downloaded the GVB and NS apps to make my life easier once I arrived. I narrowly missed the first train to Amsterdam Centraal, because I started to buy a ticket with the machine. The machine wanted to charge an extra Euro for the card, so I just bought the ticket on my phone instead. This caused a minute or two delay and I caught the next train which departed 10 minutes later.
After arriving at Amsterdam Centraal I needed to find the bus, luckily I exited the train station on the correct side. I bought a 48 hour Bus/Metro ticket and took the 48 Bus to Houthavens. It was about a 10 minute bus ride, which isn’t that close to the city center, but the hotel is on the waterfront.
I’m staying at the Residence Inn (Marriott) Houthavens this trip as I needed to burn a reward certificate of 40,000 points and this property was 40,000 points per night. The hotel appears to be fairly new and the rooms were really nice. I have a nice kitchenette with microwave, cooktop, dishwasher, and mini fridge. The room overlooks the harbor next door.
Checking into the hotel was fairly quick, but I delayed myself a little. First I took the COVID test required by the cruise line (no earlier than 2 days before the cruise). I even wore my mask on the plane to make sure I didn’t catch it. After the 15 minutes were up I got a negative test and was now certain to board the ship.
I took a brief 15 minute nap, then took a shower and changed to go back out into civilization. I took the same bus (48) back to Amsterdam Centraal. I took a picture of a river cruise ship on my way from the hotel to the bus stop.
I had intended to take the bus to Zaans Schanse where they have windmills, but I found out that the bus that goes there is a different company, so my pass was not valid. I turned around and bought train tickets as it was quicker.
The train station is about 1 mile from the windmills, so it isn’t much of a walk. In fact the one bridge you walk over has a nice viewing point for photos.
I wandered around the little tourist trap and wandered into the Cheese store, a Shoe Museum – this was actually nice with a live demonstration, and a couple of souvenir shops.
While I was wandering around I was scoping out places to launch my drone from. I decided to launch from the same place I researched online because there weren’t many people in the area and I could fly directly over the water without having to worry about people.
I got a couple of good photos and videos of the windmills with the drone and decided it was time to get back (I did spend several hours there). I stopped at Spar and got 1 liter of apple juice before heading back to the train station.
Once back at Amsterdam Centraal I wandered around Amsterdam a bit without a purpose. Sometimes I find the most interesting things on accident. I didn’t find anything too interesting today – although I did pass by the red light district. They have a bunch of (I think the signs are new) warning signs showing there is a fine of 95 Euros for taking photos of the sex workers, so obviously you won’t be seeing any photos or videos of them here, you’ll have to use your imagination or visit Amsterdam yourself.
I took trusty Bus 48 back to the hotel to back up my photos and videos and to get ready for tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow I will find some good food because all I ate today after arriving was two McDonalds hamburgers (they were only 1.35 Euro each).
A few photos from the hotel:
Today’s timeline:
