First Day in Amsterdam

Sitting here in our room at the top floor of a four-story building housing The Rookies Hotel on Korte Leidsedwarsstraat in the Leideseplein District of Amsterdam. All we can see from our window are the rooftops of nearby buildings, most of which are old, or else have been built later to resemble the style of the old buildings that surround them.

We arrived here early this morning. The bus coach we were booked on left London at 7:30 PM. By 10:00 we were at Folkestone, the England terminus of the EuroTunnel that runs trains under the English Channel, trains that carry passengers (the EuroStar) and ones that carry vehicles, including buses and large trucks on a 35-minute crossing winding up in Calais, France. It was a long coach trip (made longer by the three British yobs sitting in the two rows in front of us who kept up a schoolboy conversation about what they would do while in Amsterdam), but about 2-1/2 hours less than it was scheduled for, putting us at the Eurolines coach stop, a 15 minute, 15 Euro taxi ride from the Central rail Station, a starting point that was at least somewhat familiar to me. From there we hoofed it to Leidseplein, a walk that took us a lot longer than I remembered it taking and putting us on the platz at about 7:30 AM. We took breakfast at the Satellite Sports Café on one corner of the platz next to the world-famous original Bulldog complex.

I sent Cam on a mission to find us a room that a) was available; 2) had wireless internet access, and 3) wasn't TOO expensive. He did a fine job and loacted the The Rookies hotel, next door to The Rookies Coffee Shop.

We're a block-and-a-half off the main square and on Korte Leidsedwarsstraat, a small street that is made up primarily of hotels, restaurants, coffee shops and a variety of other small businesses. It's a street I have walked on before, three times, once with Janet and Betty and Lee; and twice with Janet alone in 1997. We liked the street because of the variety of restaurants and bars in the area and because of the street scene that surrounds it. It's well-enough lit to make ones way along the street and those that cross it. In some ways its like Soho in London, but more lively, more colorful. One principal way it was different, and I hope it will continue to be, is the street theater that goes on for patrons dining at outside tables in front of many restaurants featuring at least a dozen cuisines, from American barbecue ribs to middle east shawarma. We've seen singers and other musicians, jugglers, magicians, puppet shows and more, all plying the crowds for monetary appreciation for their efforts. Just a few doors down there's a small jazz club that Janet and I dropped into the last time we were here together in 1997. We were on our way back from spending thirty days in Europe ourselves, carrying backpacks and moving around by buses, trains, and for a brief time, a rented automobile.

This time Cam and I have a car for 29 of the 41 days we'll be traveling together. I went by and signed the papers this morning and will pick the car up tomorrow morning early. We're driving to Den Haag (The Hague) to pick up an ATM card that Cam was supposed to bring with him but that didn't get activated soon enough. A long-time friend of hours lives there during the winter months, so Cam's Mom over-nighted the card to her so we could get it on Friday.

We rested up earlier in the day to catch up on the sleep we lost on the coach from London, Cam had some lunch and I went on a photo safari along our street, Korte Leidsedwarsstraat, taking pictures along about two-third of it before exhausting the battery on my camera. I'll put the photos up at Facebook and try commenting on the ones I think are more interesting.

We went off together late this afternoon for a walk along some of the canals that criss-cross the old streets of Amsterdam. As is usual, I got us lost enough to ask (so far) friendly locals for directions back here. When we got back I took Cam for a shawarma wrap at a small restaurant very near our hotel. The sandwich was very good; the man who prepared it was as unfriendly as could be and so got no tip. He had just been dressed down by another, older man who was either our man's father or his boss, but that's no excuse for unfriendly service.

We've had dodgy internet service from the hotel's wi-fi. It worked fine this morning while downloading e-mail and reading news, and even up until early afternoon, then it disappeared, not the wi-fi itself but the internet servers we should have been connecting to. Cam talked to someone at the Coffee Shop and got it working again, but now it's out again, so I probably won't get this entry or the photos uploaded tonight. I'm hoping that we'll have better luck tomorrow.

Now it's 10 PM, Cam's gone out to have another look around, and I'm gettig ready for bed. I really should get dressed again and see what's happening a the Blue Note jazz café just down the street, but I just don't have the energy. At least we got our exercise.