Our Honeymoon - 1st installment
Ok….so here is the beginning of our honeymoon as told by Ben….
5/16/06 Tuesday
O’Hare Airport
Well my new wife Brenda and I made it to the airport at 4:00pm for our 6:00pm flight to Amsterdam. We’re getting a bite to eat first and then will try to sleep on the plane.
5/17/06 Wednesday
Amsterdam
2:30am Chicago time
9:30am Amsterdam time
We landed at the airport okay.
11:20am found hotel and checked in okay. Turns out everyone in Amsterdam is dyslexic since I can’t read a dam sign here.
Actually, so far it’s been pretty cool. The people are nice, if not somewhat pushy. We’ve seen a lot of narrow streets, bicycles, and very nice taxi cars (BMW-Mercedes). We can’t check into the hotel yet so we’re going to leave our bags and go exporing.
The hotel staff speaks excellent English to their guests, but amongst themselves they speak Dutch. I learned a couple of words for today…
Thank you => dank u
Hello => halo
Toilet => “wc”
12:50pm had brunch
Brenda had a tomato and cheese sandwich
Ben had a pineapple pancake
6:00pm
We took about a 4 hour nap to fight the jetlag. We’re going out now to explore some more. We changed from our Chicago clothes of Tuesday morning. Feels good but I’m wearing my new brown shoes with a black belt. Hope the fashion police aren’t out tonight.
7:30pm
We are going to dinner in the Jordan neighborhood, but it’s actually Jordaan…not like Mike. It’s a smaller Italian café called Palladio’s. There’s a cat that is wandering around, makes me wonder how our cat oreo would do in a restaurant. We’ve ordered ravioli – veggie for Brenda and I got carne (of course). A gentleman is sitting next to us that looks like Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones. So the wait staff is apparently Italian – or at least they speak it. Keith and his crew, along with a couple of women in the corner, smoke during their meal. We think this is strange, but that just reminds us that now we are the foreigners. However, in the opposite corner of the restaurant is a family having dinner with a small child. The smoke isn’t too bad, “different strokes for different folks” is an expression my dad would say. Side note: after mentioning it was our honeymoon, the wait staff gave us a shot of lemon vodka.
9:30pm
Drinks at Lux and tips from Fleur.
We had drinks at a bar called Lux. Fleur was a very nice 25 year old waitress who we learned a few things from. There was a really cool area where there are a lot of bars and clubs. We found a place called Boom Chicago to have a drink. It’s a comedy club, but we didn’t catch the show, right now a “football” game is going on in the square, I have no idea who’s playing, and I don’t really care, but you can tell it’s a big deal to the locals.
Going back for a second to Fleur from Lux:
- Apparently a 1 bedroom place goes for about 900-1500 euro a month in the city. That’s about 1200-1900 USD today, so the cost of living here is at least as high as Chicago.
- internet dating is also common in Amsterdam as well, although as in the states it has mixed reviews from the people who use it.
Brenda just made an excellent point, at Lux Fleur gave us a glass with alcohol in it, gin for us, and a bottle of tonic water for us to mix together. That’s actually very nice since you can adjust your drink strength I suppose.
Weather update:
So far it’s very light drizzle and very mild. A light jacket is all we need at this point.
more to follow....
5/16/06 Tuesday
O’Hare Airport
Well my new wife Brenda and I made it to the airport at 4:00pm for our 6:00pm flight to Amsterdam. We’re getting a bite to eat first and then will try to sleep on the plane.
5/17/06 Wednesday
Amsterdam
2:30am Chicago time
9:30am Amsterdam time
We landed at the airport okay.
11:20am found hotel and checked in okay. Turns out everyone in Amsterdam is dyslexic since I can’t read a dam sign here.
Actually, so far it’s been pretty cool. The people are nice, if not somewhat pushy. We’ve seen a lot of narrow streets, bicycles, and very nice taxi cars (BMW-Mercedes). We can’t check into the hotel yet so we’re going to leave our bags and go exporing.
The hotel staff speaks excellent English to their guests, but amongst themselves they speak Dutch. I learned a couple of words for today…
Thank you => dank u
Hello => halo
Toilet => “wc”
12:50pm had brunch
Brenda had a tomato and cheese sandwich
Ben had a pineapple pancake
6:00pm
We took about a 4 hour nap to fight the jetlag. We’re going out now to explore some more. We changed from our Chicago clothes of Tuesday morning. Feels good but I’m wearing my new brown shoes with a black belt. Hope the fashion police aren’t out tonight.
7:30pm
We are going to dinner in the Jordan neighborhood, but it’s actually Jordaan…not like Mike. It’s a smaller Italian café called Palladio’s. There’s a cat that is wandering around, makes me wonder how our cat oreo would do in a restaurant. We’ve ordered ravioli – veggie for Brenda and I got carne (of course). A gentleman is sitting next to us that looks like Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones. So the wait staff is apparently Italian – or at least they speak it. Keith and his crew, along with a couple of women in the corner, smoke during their meal. We think this is strange, but that just reminds us that now we are the foreigners. However, in the opposite corner of the restaurant is a family having dinner with a small child. The smoke isn’t too bad, “different strokes for different folks” is an expression my dad would say. Side note: after mentioning it was our honeymoon, the wait staff gave us a shot of lemon vodka.
9:30pm
Drinks at Lux and tips from Fleur.
We had drinks at a bar called Lux. Fleur was a very nice 25 year old waitress who we learned a few things from. There was a really cool area where there are a lot of bars and clubs. We found a place called Boom Chicago to have a drink. It’s a comedy club, but we didn’t catch the show, right now a “football” game is going on in the square, I have no idea who’s playing, and I don’t really care, but you can tell it’s a big deal to the locals.
Going back for a second to Fleur from Lux:
- Apparently a 1 bedroom place goes for about 900-1500 euro a month in the city. That’s about 1200-1900 USD today, so the cost of living here is at least as high as Chicago.
- internet dating is also common in Amsterdam as well, although as in the states it has mixed reviews from the people who use it.
Brenda just made an excellent point, at Lux Fleur gave us a glass with alcohol in it, gin for us, and a bottle of tonic water for us to mix together. That’s actually very nice since you can adjust your drink strength I suppose.
Weather update:
So far it’s very light drizzle and very mild. A light jacket is all we need at this point.
more to follow....
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