Tuesday (or is it Wednesday), Aug 20, 2024 Bisbee to Amsterdam NL

 Our flight leaves at 9:30 am so we did not have to get up crazy early. It’s 1.5 hrs to Tucson so we left the house about 6 am. We are using a new cheaper parking lot which turned out to be as easy as the one we usually use. And it had shaded parking spots.

Flight to Dallas was on time and only a couple of hours. Flight to Amsterdam was 9 hours or so, which meant about 3 movies worth. We had one meal in flight and a wakeup snack. We did not get much if any sleep.Amsterdam is 9 hours earlier than Bisbee, so we basically lost a whole day. Left on Tuesday morning and arrived Wednesday morning. We met Ralph, Teri, Nancy and Greg at the baggage claim. Teri had arranged a van to pick us all up and we were taken to our hotel to drop off our bags. Our rooms were ready early so we all checked in. Next task was to get to Central Station so we took a tram which accepted our credit cards. Tap your Visa card to get on and tap to get off. How easy can it get?! Teri found these iAmsterdam passes which were fantastic. For 100 euros (111 dollars) you can ride on any bus or tram or metro and get into most every museum and attraction for 72 hours. We picked them up at Central Station and then started our tour not by getting some sleep but by going full bore until the night came.

We did a walking tour of the Jewish quarter with a woman from eastern Europe who walked really fast and for a couple of hours we learned about the 120,000 Jews killed in WW2.

Next was the Houseboat Museum, which was on a houseboat of course. Amsterdam is all about canals and the canals all have houseboats parked everywhere. It used to be a cool cheap way to afford to live in Amsterdam but now it’s an expensive but still cool way to live in Amsterdam.

Next was to find our way back via the trams and buses to the hotel and then have dinner in Papa Hemingway's restaurant, which is attached to the hotel. We were all zombies by then but it was the smart way to avoid jet lag.