Oh, the joys of jet lag. Yawn.
The flight to Chicago was uneventful and the flight from Chicago to London had an unexpected bonus of getting bumped to Business class. The 777’s was a large fully loaded plane, and we figure at least half the load were young parents with squirming, whimpering kids. Nothing like getting bumped into the midst of bored travelers and out of the reach of tired tikes.
The Amsterdam weather has lived up to our expectation: rainy and blustery. We just missed the ground being covered with snow. The sidewalks are littered with soggy red firecracker wrappers and christmas trees set out for garbage pickup. Seems there must have been a New Year’s party here, eh?
Two friends met us here in the midst of their Paris vacation. They must have brought along good cat karma. They had a fine hotel cat that breezed through to check out that they were keeping their room in order. The karma cascaded, as we then noticed the coffeeshops all have resident cats. And the restaurants. And the bars. So overall we’ve conversed with a number of furry felines that were hiding out from the rain with us.
On the otherhand, our friends also brought odd bar karma. We ended up in a smoky Irish bar watching a dart match on tv. Something about having a tv on in a room can capture even the most robust talker’s attention, especially when it is as exciting a show as darts. We saw the continuation of the game later in the week, or maybe it was a replay. Oh, the intensity of sports these days. May I never get dart arm.
Amsterdam’s weirdness has also lived up to expections. Some guy is singing in the alleyway at the moment. Our hotel, Hotel Winston, is noisy until the 1 AM bars shutdown and each room decorated in haphazard funk. Our room has red velvet wallpaper, a lounge chair, photos on the wall from folks who have stayed there in the past. We found some SpaceCake and other oddities from the town to increase the weirdness factor. And we found a fine cafe for afternoon tea and biscotti. Nothing like weirdness in style.
With only a few hours on the road, the only thing we’ve lost is my $1 used clothing store coat. Someone in the London airport now has a fine wool jacket sitting in lost and found. And Derrell has donated his coat to me and will take days to defrost once we leave for Cairo tomorrow.
