Amsterdam April 29, 2012

Today we started the day with a nice breakfast. They have a good buffet with a nice selection plus you can order things from the kitchen like poached eggs and oatmeal.

We did a tour of Amsterdam on the coach followed by a cruise on the canal. Amsterdam was once a lagoon and they filled it in to create the areas upon which they built the houses.  Because the soil is a combination of sand, clay and peat, they used tree trunks to stabalize the buildings.  I think our guide said there were something like 11 million tree trunks under the city.  The canals were the result of filling in for buildings, and some of the original canals they even filled in to create roads.  That is why you don't see alleys in the city, the land is too valuable, so houses are just built next to each other.

Below are some pictures from the city tour.  The first picture is of a canal that also shows bikes parked along the bridge.  There are bicycles everywhere and they showed us different parking lots just for bikes, one that was four stories tall.  They said most residents have two bikes, the good one the keep in side and the old, rusted one they park outside so if it gets stolen or thrown in the canal, no great loss.

Picture 2 is from the Rijksmuseum, their national museum and is from the Rembrandt collection.  I am not a huge art fan, but I have to admit the paintings were quite beautiful. Rembrandt is buried in a mass grave at the church, having died a poor man.

Picture 3 is of a mini Arc du Triomphe, which is what Napoleon passed through when he laid claim to Amsterdam.

Picture 4 is of a typical canal and the bridge that crosses it. House boats line the canals, some floating on the water, some placed on a cement pad, many are old boats converted to house boats.  Our guide said they have set a limit of 2,500 of them.  Although a house boat may only cost $50,000 USD, the pad/spot to place it can cost as much as $300,000 USD.

Picture 5 is the coach that drove us around the city.  One of the guys on our bus was apparently late and missed the bus and had to take a taxi back.  We even left the museums late and were almost 20 mintues late back to the boats and he still missed his ride.  Bet he's not late again!

Picture 6 is a sample of the architecture in Amsterdam.  Each building has a lift bar that extends out from the edge of it's roof.  This is because most buildings are narrow, as are their doors and stair wells.  The only way to get things into an upper level is to attach a cable to them and use the lift to pull them up the outside of the building and in a window.  Also, houses are one, two and three or more windows wide.  This is how a house was taxed by the French, by its number of windows, so a house with many windows across was the house of a wealthy family.

The final picture is of one of the boats that had been converted to a home.  It is much nicer than some, but they all seem to be eclectic.  Our guide referred to Amsterdam to being the home of hippies and the relaxed, laid back attitude of Amsterdam.  He said something about the three stars of Amsterdam and what they really stood for were Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll.

The coffee houses in Amsterdam, of which there are well over 250, sell more than just coffee.  You can get coffee cake with hashish in it, or a joint.  They are trying to pass something so that tourists can not buy them, but that has not occurred yet.  The guide said enjoy it in Amsterdam, but at the airport they had drug sniffing dogs to be sure it doesn't leave the city.

Tomorrow is Queen's Day.  It is the birthday of the Queen's Mother, but they celebrated it for over 50 years on her birthday (April 30) that they just never changed it.  They said over 800,000 people come into Amsterdam (the city has a population ofabout 750,000 so the population doubles) to drink, celebrate, drink, and then drink some more. They said it is one big crazy drunk.  They were also concerned because there was some big soccer game and depending on the outcome, it could add to the craziness, so the police were getting prepared.  Everyone dresses in orange and you could already see the orange hats and shirts coming out.  There were signs around town announcing how many hours before the start of Queens Day and many of the doors of stores were surrounded by orange balloons.  Stores and restaurants stay open, schools, government and public transportation close for the day because it is just impossible to get around town with the crowds.  

The thing we all chuckled about were these big orange box like things with four holes that were on many of the corners.  These were for men to use when drinking too much beer.  They said women could use them too if they wanted, but this was their solution to a million plus beer drinkers in the city.

We had the Captains Gala tonight.  They opened the lounge, gave everyone a glass of champagne as we entered then the Captain, the Hotel Director and the Cruise Director toasted us as we entered.  All the staff was introduced.  Our Captain is a whole 30 years old and several people said "we have grand children your age".  They introduced the staff, most of them coming from Eastern Block countries.  Then we had a phenomenal dinner with Carpacio, a clear mushroom soup, Scallops in a sauce over spinach.  I had dover sole for dinner, which was awesome, then they had a tasting platter of desserts.  We get free wine and beer with lunch and dinner.

For the first time since I've been on the boat, I went to bed and was asleep in five minutes.  Great first full day!

River Queen April 28, 2012

So I have arrived at my boat, the River Queen.  I got here about 11 am (my lugguage is still in London) but the first picture is of our cruise director who has taken over the quest of finding my luggage.  Hooray.

We can check in around 2 pm local time.  While I was waiting I met a very nice couple from Vermont who were waiting to leave.  Red Sox fans, they were looking up the scores to see how their team was doing.  They had just finished the cruise through Holland and tours of the tulips.  She showed me the pictures they had taken while there and they were quite beautiful.

Below are some pictures from the boat.

1 Cruise Director (don't know names yet but sure I will as time goes on)

2 The lovely lady who greeted us and got us to the lounge area while we are waiting to check in.  They have a nice buffet set up for us with soup, salad, sandwiches, lasagne, fruit and desserts.  So far I have only had the soup and fruit.  Good and bad - soups was fablous, but it was obviously made with cream and butter..that is the "good and bad" of it.  Tastes wonderful tho and the fresh fruit is great.  They have the little mandarin oranges I remember getting in Mazatlan that were so sweet and good.

3 Library which is an extension of the lounge

4 Outside, these windows look into the kitchen (lower) and what appears to be a dining room

5 End of boat.  I saw the handles of stationary bikes on top.  Looks like a sitting area with windows all around.

6 Where we checked in and the desk clerk with the great smile. 

7 Hall from reception to lounge area.

8 Rows of windows represent the state rooms.  I'm in room 409 which all I know is part of the top row, so my window extends from top to bottom.  If everyone shows, there will be 121 guests on board.

9 Windows to the lounge where we are currently sitting

10 Entrance to the River Queen.  It was voted best River Cruise boat by Conde Naste.  It is considered an art deco design, which is a little too art decor my taste but it is quite beautiful

11 Entrance to our boat

12 The bar 

Just for Fun

My wonderful sister, Cindy, and her hubby Steven and my nephew Ray are taking care of my dog, Millie, while I'm gone.  Cindy has Lola (in the picture), Shelby (St Bernard) and Jackson (Australian something - can't remember) who have been snuggling up to my Millie, who has the nick name "Snuggle Bug".  Cindy sends me a picture everyday of Millie, which I so love.  

The only bad things are:

1 I'm not sure Millie will want to come home, she and her cousins seem quite happy (and the Gordon Clan is spoiling Millie terribly)

2 Cindy thinks Millie needs a sibling and has been sending me pictures of dogs that need to be adopted, like Jack, a 10# Rat Terrier mix.  Not fair since, like her, I'm a sucker for any dog that needs a home, especially those dogs that have a tough time finding a forever home. <sigh> 

April 27, 2012

Today was a travel day, very long, very tiring.  I made it through London to Amsterdam where I'm to connect with my river boat to start my river cruise.  I made it just fine, but sadly my big suitcase is still in London.  It is supposed to arrive tomorrow sometime.  The best sentence right now in the paper work from the cruise company - give them my lost luggage report and they will track it down.  Supposedly it will be on a Saturday flight to Amsterdam.

It was a short connection at London City Airport, which is a small airport and I thought how easy.  WRONG!  Had to go through Border Control (didn't have to do that at Heathrow if you were going to connecting flight), then of course both trays of my carry on luggage had to be inspected.  Boarding light is flashing for my gate, which of course was almost the last gate at the other end of the airport (at that moment it didn't seem so small).  LOVE LOVE LOVE the staff of British Airways, they made sure I got to the right place and I learned (this is Europe, not just British Airways) that they don't leave until they account for every person who has luggage on the plane.  If you aren't there, they call you individually.  If you don't show in a reasonable amount of time, they take your lugguage off the plane.  Turns out I had time to spare.

Other than they didn't get my luggage transferred in London (in all fareness, I barely got me tranferred) they have been awesome to fly with.  Thanks to points, I've flown Club Europe on all the flights, which means free alcohol, a light meal or high tea, great service.  This inter continental flights crack me up.  The seats are the same as everyone elses, the difference is they draw a curtain then feed us.

I have met two couples, one from Australia and one from New Zealand, who "adopted me" while we travelling to be sure I got where I needed to be.  They were just delightful.  I met a young man who works in a bank in Qatar and it was fascinating to hear about banking in the Middle East.

Barcelona April 25, 2012

On Wednesday April 25 I took a day trip to Barecelona.  I took the high speed train, which reached a top speed of 301 km/hr (187 mph).  It really didn't seem like it until we passed another train, which would go by with a "woosh" and it was then you realized how fast you were going.  I finally got to see the movie Dolphin Tales with Spanish subtitles.

Barcelona was a beautiful city except for the cajillion people there from the four HUGE cruise ships in port and the busloads of kids who came in waves to the center of town (Plaza de Catalonia).

Below are some pictures from my day trip.

1 High speed train

2 City History Museum.  It traces the history of Barcelona from its beginning to later middle ages.

3 View of the city from Montjuic, which means Mountain of the Jews.  It was home to the 1929 World Exhibition and the 1992 Olympics

4 Artwork meant to represent the waves of the ocean in front of the "World Trade Center", which really is one big receiving area for cruise ships.

5 La Ramba - Barcelona's most famous street.  It connects the Plaza de Catalonia (center of town) with Port Vell along the Mediterranean.

6 Plaza de Catalonia.  It was surrounded by stores, banks, Hard Rock Cafe and of course several Starbucks.  I think there seems to be a Starbucks and a bank (or 2) on every block here too.

7 Hard Rock Cafe raspberry mojito.  I have a good friend who collects pins from HR so I have tried to find one in every city, buy the pins and have a raspberry mojito.

8 National Palace built on Montjuic for the 1929 Internationl Exhibition.  Now home to the National Art Museum of Cartalonia.

9 Customs Building.  I just thought it was a beautiful building

10 Entrance to the Olympic Stadium on Montjuic.  We also got to see the pool where the diving competiiton was held, but my pictures didn't turn out.

11 Base of Columbus Monument.  There is a monument very similar to the monument in Madrid

12 Street view of Barcelona I thought the arch was beautiful

13 Full view of Columbus Monument.  The one in Madrid looks very similar to this one.

14 and 15 Plaza del Rey.  It is believed that it was on the steps of this building that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella greeted Columbus when he returned from his first trip to the New World.

Madrid April 21 - April 27, 2012

Madrid was wonderful.  My apartment, which was just as amazing in person as it was on the web, was close to everything I wanted to do.  As it turns out, I was just two blocks from where I caught my hop on hop off bus.  The city is more contemporary than Paris (architecturally) and than the places we visited in England (except London of course).  I included a sampling of pictures.  I think there was a Starbucks and a bank on every block, it was crazy.

1 Gran Via, street near apartment

2 Puerta de Atocha train station, Madrid

3 Cit Hall, Madrid

4 National Bank of Espana

5 and 6 Futbol Stadium. They used to have 100,000 attend games but seats for 70,000 which created safety issues.  Have reduced number allowed in the stadium to 70,000.  Wednesday night when I was returning from the train station, police were lined up near the stadium.  Madrid was playing at home and if they won, the fans filled the street to celebrate.  If they lost (which they did) they go home.  

7 Plaza Mayor.  Wonderful square in Madrid with apartments and stores and markets and all kinds of open are restaurants.

8 Lion King in Spanish.  My apartment was in the heart of the theatre district, so it was like being by Denver Performing arts with that same electricity downtown Denver has.  I walked by a theatre on the way to the Gran Via and often the doors were open to back of the stage with the stage hands outside working to get ready for the next show.  Once night folks were lined up by the back door I assume to see cast members (looked familiar since we have done that ourselves)

9 and 10 Sangria and Paella Mixta at a restaurant in Plaza Mayor.

11 Street performer, Plaza Mayor.  Not sure how he/she did it, but it was fun to watch.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Friday was another day of driving as we went to Stonehenge and Bath.  I took a ton of pictures of stonehenge, it is just amazing (first and last pictures)  What I didn't realize is there were many of these built, some in this same area and elsewhere.  The others built here were out of wood and they know because of trenches around this structure and other places they found evidence of the wooden posts being sunk.  

The stone in the center is called blue stone and came from about 200 miles away.  They are still not sure what it was used for.  Of course those of us who are scifi fans know it was built by aliens and was probably a landing sight - our group had a good laugh when some of us tossed that in as a fun theory.  You can't walk inside anymore because people tried carviing their names in the rock or chipping off pieces to take home.  A few religious groups are allowed entrance on holy days but that is all.  It is a lovely sight with mounds behind it that are burial mounds.  There was a gentle wind that added the delicate aroma of sheep and what smelled like a failing septic system to the mix.  

The cool thing about going with the Smithsonian, our tour guide had done this many times so she knew everyone and we got to enter sites before or after the general public, which has been so nice.  We had one encounter with a German tour group and apparently that tour guide was not well liked, the staff at Stonehenge I think wanted to put him in one of the burial mounds as their unorganized group pushed past all of us who had lined up as asked - they called us the well behaved group.

From Stonehenge we went to Bath, home of Roman Baths.  The town had a different appearance from some of the other towns we visited, I am assuming the Roman influence.  The town reminded me of Taxco MX where the city is in a basin and to get to the rest of town you have to walk/drive up long steep hills.  If you would like to know more about the baths, they have a wonderful website at www.romanbaths.co.uk with history and pictures.

Pictures 2 and 3 are of the Bath Abbey.  It was a beautiful structure with magnificent stained glass.  There was a courtyard on two sides that had wonderful street performers.  One played an instrument from Switzerland that was made of two shields welded together and had a sound similar to a caribbean steel drum.  

Our guide then gave us our tokens for a self guided tour of the baths.  It is so amazing to look at things made by men as early as 50 AD.  The fourth picture is a model of the bath complex during its prime.  Fed by a hot spring, it didn't have the sulfur smell like our hot springs in Glenwood, but it had kind of a rusty color from the minerals in it.  The grand bath (fifth picture) was the main bath with other smaller baths around it, which made me think of hot tubs.  They had changing rooms and a place they display as an area where massages were given.  You could see the hot springs, a sample of the channels that brought the water in and out and they had the smaller pools drained so you could see what they looked like, including the channels bringing in water and steps down to the pools.  Apparently they had a series of pools so you could take your hot bath, then a cooler pool then a cold pool for a final, pore closing dip.

After Bath, we took the two hour drive back to our hotel for a final social hour in the bar.  Several of us (about half the group) went down to the Edward Moon pub.  I had beouf bourguinon and potato gratin that was amazing and, sadly, 10 times better than the beouf bourguinon I had in Paris.  

Saturday morning was the drive into London to fly home.  The majority of the group went early (7:45) to London which left 7 of us who had later flights.  This is where I love my BA points - had access to the BA Lounge with free WIFI, food and booze.  Great place to wait for a flight.  Flight to Madrid was very nice, the flight only had 59 people and only six of us in Club Europe, so great service. They served us high tea (I had coffee) with a cucumber sandwich, smoked salmon sandwich, some kind of sweet bun and a little cake that was delicious.

That ends England, Scotland and Wales.