Amsterdam Travel Day

We were supposed to be heading to Florida for spring break but we had a change of plans when I found a great deal on tickets to Amsterdam. I've wanted to visit Amsterdam for years but I just had not found the right deal. We had a little family meeting after I found the great plane fares to discuss changing our spring break plans and after some initial push back from the kids we changed our plans and booked the tickets to Amsterdam. After the tickets were booked, I immediately went on Airbnb to find an apartment rental. For our family of four I prefer apartment rentals to hotels especially in Europe! It is so nice to have a kitchen, multiple bedrooms, and a washer and dryer.

I booked our tickets for a flight that departed late Friday night. As hard as it is flying after working all day, it's worth it to get to the destination a day sooner! Our flight left O'Hare at 10:40 pm so we did not have to leave home until a bit after 5:00. Dan and I both worked all day Friday and the kids had a full day of school. We met at home to get some last minute packing done before leaving for the airport.

Our trip to O'Hare was uneventful. We arrived at the airport with plenty of time and we were able to watch the first half of the Badger game before boarding our plane. I have a love / hate relationship with flying out of O'Hare. I hate it because it is so big but I love it when we are flying to Europe or Hawaii because there are a lot more options than we have out of Milwaukee.

Our flight to Amsterdam included a connection in Munich. The flight from Chicago to Munich was pretty uneventful. All four of us slept for at least a few hours. I was super annoyed an hour into the flight when they came around to serve dinner, who wants dinner at 11:45 pm? All I wanted to do was sleep but it was hard to do since the lights were not dimmed. The meal service lasted about an hour and finally after dinner they dimmed the lights. At that point I was finally able to fall asleep. My favorite thing about the plane was that the bathrooms were actually downstairs. I've flown a lot and this was the first time I've seen that configuration. I typically avoid airplane bathrooms if at all possible but these were not quite as bad as normal!

We arrived in Munich and had a short layover of about an hour. It was enough time to grab a snack for the kids and to find out how the Badger basketball game turned out. We were so sad to find out that the Badgers lost by one point. The kids both had a pretzel for a snack and soon we were on our way to Amsterdam!

Ali's German Pretzel

The flight to Amsterdam was quick. I read a few chapters of a new book and before I knew it we were landing. Our luggage arrived quickly and we headed outside to get an Uber from the airport to the apartment. This process was easy, our Uber arrived within a couple minutes and we were on our way to the apartment. We quickly called the contact person for the apartment because someone needed to meet us to give us the keys

When we were almost to the apartment, I all of a sudden remembered that I forgot to pick up our transport passes at the airport. I had spent a ton of time researching our best option for public transportation passes and finally decided on a new option that I read about on TripAdvisor. We were supposed to pick up our passes at the Hertz desk at the airport. In my tired state, I totally forgot to get them! 

The apartment is lovely. It is small but will work well for our family of 4. We have a lot more room than we'd have an a hotel. The apartment is on a canal so we have houseboats out our front window!  This is the third time we've use Airbnb for rentals in Europe, we've always had great places!

View of the canal

Kitchen

Kid's bedroom (Ali claimed her bed right away)

Our bedroom

Dan and I discussed what we do about should do about the transport passes. We decided to take an Uber back to the airport to pick them up. Unfortunately we were going to have to pay a pretty hefty "stupid tax" in the form of an Uber ride there and back but we figured it was the best option moving ahead. I was mad at myself for forgetting but at that point being mad was not going to help. We left the kids at the apartment and headed back to the airport.

When we arrived at the airport we went to the Hertz desk to retrieve our travel passes. We were using a company called Tripkey who offers travel passes that are linked to your credit card so you are able to "pay as you go." When we got to the Hertz desk the working man had no clue what we were talking about. After a few phone calls he discovered that yes this was a pick up location for Tripkey cards. The only problem was he did not trained on how to activate them. We probably spent 45 minutes with him trying to get things settled. Finally he us the transit cards and told us that his coworker who was coming in at 11 pm would activate them. We left with the cards feeling a bit nervous that the cards would not actually get activated. Luckily, just a short time after we arrived back at the apartment, we received a call that the coworker had been able to activate them remotely. Fingers crossed that the cards work when we head out today!

This little detour to fix my mistake was definitely not planned. We could have let it ruin our day but we did not. When traveling sometimes you just have to roll with things.  Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a planner but as I get older I understand that sometimes things just do not go as planned. Our reaction and response to unplanned things has far more to do with how the rest of the day will go than any amount of planning. You can choose to get upset and let things ruin your day or you can forge ahead and have a good day.  

Once we arrived back a the apartment we were all starving. We headed out to find dinner. Our apartment is in a neighborhood close to the University. We tried a pizza place a few blocks away  but the wait was over an hour. I saw another restaurant on our walk there so headed back and were seated right away. Our server was super friendly and I think we were the only Americans in the restaurant. Ali and I had pizza and the boys had pasta. The food was good and reasonably priced. After dinner we stopped at the grocery store to get food for breakfast. I love grocery shopping in other countries. They had a pretty good selection and we were able to pick up breakfast food and some snacks. We'll probably head back to the store later today to pick up a few more things.  

View from our walk

We got back to the apartment at about 9 pm local time (3 pm at home). Despite the sleep we got on the plane, everyone was exhausted.  We all headed to bed and hoped for a good night sleep!

Tomorrow: Van Gogh museuem, Canal Boat Ride, and ???