Hello Europe, we have arrived

Snapshot
Where - Amsterdam (Hilton Doubletree Centraal hotel)
Weather - Fine / light clouds - max 24°C (much more comfortable than Abu Dhabi)
Steps - 14,850 or 9.4km (not bad considering 7 hours was spent sitting in a plane)

It's been a long day - up before 6am, airport by 7.30am, flight at 9am and arrived in Amsterdam at 3pm. We caught the train from the airport to Centraal Station (much more economical than a taxi) and from there it was only about 500m walk to our hotel. We have a room on the top (10 th) floor with a great view over the river.

As is our usual custom we went for an orientation walk down to the cruise ship terminal where we join our cruise on Sunday. It is only about 15 mins walk but to do it with luggage is probably not a good idea as it is mostly paving stones and would probably wreck or bags... so taxi it is! Then we wandered back to central Amsterdam where Brad wanted to take some (what he believes to be) iconic photos of Amsterdam. So we have a picture of Centraal station (yes it does have a double a) and agreed, this is iconic architecture of Amsterdam as are the ba-zillion pushbikes parked near the station. However he insisted that shops selling wacky-tobaccy seeds and smoking implements was also iconic Amsterdam but I have my doubts. Anyway, tomorrow we shall do the hop-on hop-off bus tour so hopefully get some typical Amsterdam photos then.

Might call it an early night tonight - it's about 9.30pm and the sun still hasn't set but our body clocks say it is 11.30pm Abu Dhabi time)Read more