European Vacation – Day 1 – Amsterdam

amsterdam
The view of the city from The Ramada Apollo

This is the first of many blog posts from my first vacation to Europe. The first 3 days will be spent in Amsterdam, before my wife and I board a Viking River Cruise ship for 14 days, sailing down the Rhine, Main and Danube rivers. More on those adventures in upcoming posts, including the details on how we decided on the Viking River Cruise.

But for these next three posts, it’s all about Amsterdam.

Flight

amsterdam
Tracking the flight from my seat on the Delta flight

Our flight was direct from Salt Lake City to Schiphol – about 10 hours long. This was the longest flight I had taken in my life and I have to admit, it was tiring. Not to mention the 8 hour time difference that happened – which means losing 1/3 of a day.

amsterdam
Almost landed at Schiphol

Regardless of the long ass flight, it was smooth and the landing was good. I’ve rarely had anything but decent flights when flying Delta. Also a plus was the fact that all alcohol and in-flight entertainment was included. You know I had more than one drink.

Once landed, we went through customs, got our luggage and waited with the large group of people we were with for our shuttle bus that would take us to our hotel.

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Ramada Apollo – the hotel we stayed at

The Ramada Apollo was our hotel for the 2 nights we would spend in Amsterdam. It was pretty decent, with a rooftop bar that provided the view of the city in the first photo on this post.

Patatjes Met

amsterdam
PATATJES MET

For those who know Dave2 of Blogography.com, his love for Patatjes Met is well known. Well, I finally was able to have them – while not at the same place he gets them at [these were at the hotel bar], they were really good. Dutch fries with mayo [I was told the mayo I had was dutch mayo, even though the color is more white than yellow] is the simple translation, and yes, they were quite tasty.

Next up: a day long tour of the city and meeting a long time blogger in person for the first time.

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