The Trip Begins

Left out of BWI airport about 8:40 Friday evening. Plane was pretty full. Michelle (another student, for those that don't know the characters in this adventure) was on my flight. Flight was about 5 hours via IcelandAir to Reykjavik. The legroom was terrible, but the flight was otherwise ok. Landed at Reykjavik as the sun came up. Despite being in the middle of the Atlantic, Iceland is on Greenwich Mean Time (-5 hours from EST). The airport at Reykjavik was very small and rather spartan. All of the bathrooms had lines. Before we could go to the gate for the connecting flight they herded the entire plane through customs and security. Apparently the Europeans must have some kind of cooperative agreement because this served as the customs point for entry into the Netherlands since they did not put us through customs at the other end.

The last leg, to Amsterdam, was only three hours but there was a big norse-looking dude who sat in the middle seat, sprawled out, and then passed out for most of the flight.

Arrived at the hotel around 1:30 or so on Saturday and immediately crashed for about 5 hours. The cab ride in was interesting. 110 Euros - I'm thinking the stupid American (me) got swindled, but then again gas IS more expensive here. On the drive from the airport to Der Haige passed a lot of farms though I could not tell what they were growing. I also passed a Biotech Park that was advertised with a big billboard. It seems that everyone is getting in that game.

Sunday morning I had a charmingly delightful breakfast in the hotel's little dining nook. Nice cold cut meats and cheese, strong coffee with some kind of creamer substance, and some fruit. All of the locals speak english very well. My cab driver (who drove a brand new mercedes station wagon with GPS) explained to me the language structure of dutch vs. german and english. I suspect he had a Phd and just robbed ignorant Americans on the weekends. He was amazingly well spoken and his vocabulary definitely implied higher education.

As luck would have it, I found a mexican restaurant that I will offer as a dining candidate some night. There's a clause in Dutch on the ad that, while i can't make it all out due to only getting past level one on my dutch lesson CD, seems to imply some sort of discount or bonus glass of wine if you are staying at the Hotel Petite.
Interestingly, while the ad is in three languages, the discount part wasn't included on the American version. Share the love.

That's all for this edition. I'm expecting the rest of the class to stagger in over the next 4 hours. Please excuse typos - I hate laptops. (This blog entry made possible by Steve Jobs, NOT Bill Gates)

Allen

PS Photos coming as soon as I can figure out how to dump them from the camera.