Amsterdam 1
Trip Start
Nov 14, 2008
1
8
102
Trip End
Feb 26, 2009
Amsterdam,
Netherlands
Friday, November 21, 2008
I got up relatively early for this trip, as our flight was at 1pm from City Airport. Unfortunately I had to carry my bag on my back for the entire hour or so I was in the abbey, which was quite painful considering it weighs close to 20kg and is more like a suitcase with unconvincing backpack straps.
There's so much history here, it was built around 1066 (when the Normans invaded), and has been used for every royal coronation since, as well as being the wedding and burial site for many royals. Although physically less impressive than St Paul's, the tombs were of some very significant people, including Charles Dickens, Laurence Olivier (in front of a monument to Shakespeare), Isaac Newton, and Charles Darwin. That's right, Charles Darwin, who did more than probably anyone to turn people away from religion, is buried in Britain's most historic church. The Unknown Soldier is also buried there, and I stopped for a moment to pay my respects.
The flight to Amsterdam
I arrived at City Airport over an hour before the 1pm flight (this airport doesn't require early check-ins), where Mich and Deutsch told me that our flight had just been cancelled because of bad weather in Amsterdam. We were moved to a 4:15 pm flight from Heathrow, all the way on the other side of the city, thus wasting even more of our already short day. I spent the flight reading through the 4 newspapers British Airways offered each person, I'm very impressed with the Times, unlike the others it has actual news and was kind of a bigger version of SMH.
Just before boarding, we found out Tow, who flew to London before catching a connecting flight to Amsterdam, had also been delayed, and was sitting in a plane on the ground at Heathrow for SEVEN HOURS!!
More of Tow's bad luck
Not only had he wasted 7 hours sitting still with nothing to do, he was told at the airport in Amsterdam that his luggage hadn't arrived. Luckily, Heathrow staff loaded it onto another flight, which turned out to be our one! We met him at Schiphol Airport, where we gave him his bag, and he gave us an interesting story.
So, before the rest of us arrived in Amsterdam, tow called up Aivengo Hostel to make sure our booking was in order. They told him they didn't have a Daniel Tow booked from the 21st of November ... it turns out, he actually booked for us from the 21st of October! Great start to the trip: delayed flight, undelivered bag, and wrong booking dates. We expected him to be in a shitty mood, but he surprisingly happy, and was paying everyone and everything out, meaning he was being his normal self. He booked us into the Hotel Ibis next to Amsterdam Centraal Station (the Dutch add extra A's to everything cos they're jealous the Germans have longer words), and agreed to pay half our total cost, as well as the amount Aivengo charged his credit card. What a nice guy, how can I pick on someone so generous?!
The weather was freezing, we saw our first bit of snow, but we were all too buggered to do any more than get dinner so we left it as an early night.
