Amsterdam 9/3/2017

Wow!  It seems like I've been up for hours and hours (mainly because I have)!  We woke up early yesterday morning and had the car all packed so that when Lana and John got to the house a little before 8, we were all set to go.  We drove up to Laura and Nick's Hull house, visited with everyone, had a tour of the house and a quick bite to eat and then headed to the ferry.  The ferry is 5 minutes from the house, but I'm glad we left early as when it was time to board, we were the last ones allowed on board as it was very crowded.  Dan and Alex were right behind us - they were going to go into the city for the afternoon - and they didn't get on the boat!  The shuttle was easy and half price for seniors.  A shuttle took us to our terminal (a 5 minute drive) and we had arrived at Logan.  We got to our gate, which was at the end of the world and then just read, walked around, and people watched.  There was a flight that took off to Amsterdam a couple of hours before ours and there was a young couple who came off the plane after everyone had boarded.  Apparently, she has a huge sensitivity to peanuts and someone on the flight previous had eaten some.  The washed down the seat, but she could still smell it.  I don't really blame her as something like that could mean life or death to many people.  Unfortunately, that meant that they had to off-load their luggage, which took over a half hour so the rest of the people on that plane had a delayed take off.  We had no such issues on our flight and took off fairly close to the time we were assigned.  I did doze a bit, but not enough to call it sleep.  Dave had an "ants in the pants" lady sitting next to him AND she spilled red wine on his pants, which fortunately was removed with soda water.  We arrived in Amsterdam at 7:30 this morning and took a shuttle to our hotel.  We stowed our bags and then walked to the train station.  We eventually - with a little help from a young man - figured how to work the ticket machine, but unfortunately go on a train going in the wrong direction.  I told the conductor and, wow, what customer service!  He got off with us at the next stop, walked us around to the correct train to go back towards the city center and even passed us along to a conductor on the new train!  (Like that would happen every day in the U. S.!).  We arrived at Central Station and walked over to the Maritime Museum.  We had a lovely lunch in the museum cafe and then did a tour of the museum.  There were some awesome exhibits - one of which I think I will mention to Mystic Seaport!  We went outside to see the boats in the bay and discovered a swimming race was just starting.  Hundreds of swimmers were jumping into the bay and swimming down one of the canals in waves.  Just like a road race, they were swimming various distances - 2 K, 5 K and even 10 K!  It was fun to watch and I hope I got a few good shots.  We walked back to the station and then rode the train back to the hotel.  When we got off at our stop, we had to ask directions back to the hotel as we had gotten off at a different part of the station and couldn't see which way to walk.  A limo driver was very kind and set up off in the correct direction.  We took a respite for an hour or so and then went down to the desk to have our boarding passes for tomorrow printed.  One of the clerks had a suggestion for dinner so we went for another walk.  We passed it the first time, but asked a couple on the street and walked back two blocks to find it.  In our defense, the name of the restaurant was obscured by a large umbrella over the outside tables.  The dinner was very nice and one of the waiters even gave us a ride back to the hotel as we were all flagging by that time!  We have showered and are ready to hit the sack (actually, Dave is snoring already!) and will get up early for our flight to Africa tomorrow morning.  I will try to get pictures on at some point, but my eyes are at half mast so it won't be tonight.  I just wanted you to know that we arrived safely and are ready for our next adventure.