We'll get to that shortly. The alarm awakens us at 6am and Karen gets up to start more organizing. She can shuffle that stuff all around as much as she wants and it won't get any lighter. I get up at 6:30 and put the final touches on our load of stuff. I put two suitcases out in the hallway with their colored tags on them and when I go to put the other two out, the first ones are gone already. They must want us off this boat now. We have until 9 to be out...

Up early today as we have planned a little side trip on the train. Mom makes our breakfast in the kitchen. Nothing fancy. Corn flakes, toast, yogurt, fruit and coffee. We spent €10 at the grocery store and we will get 3 breakfasts out of that, quite the discount. We like to eat at the table by the window and people watch while drinking our coffee. I work on the blog a bit while she gets ready and then off we go. At Centraal station, we take a I hour t...

Unbelievable. It's 9:30am. I just woke earlier and it was 6. What happened? We slept for 15 hours. I know we were tired from the flight but that's crazy. We have plans. That's ok. Mom? We got to hurry up. We're going to the Christmas park, the canal ride, the night canal ride and shopping. We're getting a late start but we'll be ok if we roll.First there's breakfast to make, then makeup time plus whatever. We don't leave the h...

The Amsterdam airport is spread out, like a big U. Mom and I had to walk from the gate at one end of the U to our baggage claim at the other. It's far and took us some time. Immigration, customs and baggage went quickly. I activated our Eurail pass right at the airport and we took the train right from the airport into downtown Amsterdam, a 17 minute ride.At Centraal station, it was about a ten minute walk to our apartment in the De Wallen district (old to...