Day 1-2: Friday & Saturday, September 8-9

The Journey Begins

Well, here goes my attempt at a small photo blog of our visit to Amsterdam, Netherlands. Depending on how exhausted we are at the end of a day, we’ll attempt to upload a few highlights of the day in photo and words.

The limo picked us up from home at 4:50PM. There was utterly crazy traffic in downtown Toronto, and we were stuck on Jarvis Street for a long time. We finally arrived at Pearson International at 6:15PM and made our way to the Bag Drop queue.

First stop: Free food and drinks in the Maple Leaf Lounge at Pearson:

After spending some time indulging in the Maple Leaf Lounge, we made our way to the boarding gate. With our upgraded Business Class tickets we had priority baggage and boarding so getting on board was a breeze. The plane was about 15 minutes late pushing back from the gate – we were scheduled for an 8:45PM departure but lifted off at 9:20PM.

What a fantastic flight to Amsterdam! It was especially sweet as we had won a “bid” with Air Canada to upgrade our economy seats to Business/First Class so this was truly a (most likely to be) once-in-a-lifetime experience. What a way to go!

Now, on to the flight:

We had the “lay flat” beds in Business Class so were able to sleep for some of the flight – what a treat! So nice to arrive at a European destination and not be gaga from jet lag.

Arrival In Amsterdam

We landed in Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport at 10:15AM local time.

We found the train that took us from Schiphol to Centraal Station in Amsterdam, and from Centraal we walked to our lodgings, the Linden Hotel, checking in at about Noon.

After a short nap/reset at the hotel, we started wandering around to see what our Amsterdam neighbourhood had in store for us.

It had been a long day of travel so it was an early bed that night – must be fresh for our big day tomorrow!