I cannot believe the day is finally here! We have been planning this trip for the better part of a year and it always felt so far away.
We left SLC at 4:50 p.m. on May 3rd for a 10 hour flight to Amsterdam (we lost 8 hours). I thought for sure I would be able to sleep on the flight, but boy was I wrong! It was so cramped and uncomfortable and loud. I always forget how loud a plane can be. And they seemed to come around with food constantly. I just wanted to be left alone to watch a movie, listen to some music, and relax but what I got was interruptions from my kids and the flight crew. Oh well, they took great care of us. The flight was pretty smooth and we arrived on time. Once we got to Amsterdam though the exhaustion was setting in and I was not feeling well at all! We finally went through customs/security/baggage claim and got to the rental car desk. I just wanted out of there. The weather was clear and crisp- I thought it felt wonderful! We got a brand new Mercedes Benz for our rental car and headed toward Alkmaar where we have our hotel for the first couple of days. After a few wrong turns and having to watch for crazy bicyclists, we finally found our hotel. I know "they" say to never sleep when you are jet lagged until night to get your body acclimated to the new schedule but we couldn't help it. All four of us fell asleep for about 2 glorious hours. When I woke up I was actually feeling better and we decide to go walk around Alkmaar and get some dinner. We found this cute little square full of people and restaurants. We ate at a place called Bregje and had melon and proscuitto, carpacchio, a goat cheese and chickpea salad, beef tenderloin, chicken and frites. Everything was delicious and we dined al fresco which was fun, if not a little chilly. After that we headed back to the hotel, discovered a parking ticket on our car (oops, didn't know we were in a pay-to-park zone), showered and we're all laying around reading, playing games or in my case, blogging. We were able to touch base with Lynn & Margaret to let them know we made it ok which was nice. We didn't end up doing the two things we had planned today (Rembrandt Museum and Dutch Resistance museum) but I feel just fine about us skipping those to get some rest. Tomorrow the fun begins!
Trevor playing with the pigeons in the square next to the restaurant
Our hotel is called Hotel College Alkmaar and is an old college that has been renovated to a small hotel. It is nice but very simple. No frills, not even a box of kleenex or a telephone but we will make it work. So far we have been able to find people that speak English to help us but it certainly has been a culture shock. Alkmaar is a suburb of Amsterdam.
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