I can hear the most beautiful birdsong warbling in through our hotel window. I still marvel that I never heard things like this before I got my cochlear implant. Even with the two hearing aids, nothing came in so clear the way it does with the CI. Anyway, this birdsong is nothing like the raucous cacophony I hear from our birds at home. This birdsong sounds like it's only a few birds who politely take turns with their songs. Or maybe it's just one mockingbird.
One more reason to appreciate being able to hear with my CI, along with one more reason to appreciate hotel rooms with windows that actualy open.
The Hotel Aalders is in Amsterdam's museum district, on a quiet side street and just minutes from the tram, parks, pubs and cafes, museums and other attractions. Our room is small but it works. Totally wheelchair-impossible but a piece of cake for an ambulatory blind lady.
There are no wide open spaces here for me to get lost in. This place is old European -- old Amsterdam -- and full of odd steps up and down, nooks and crannies, weird corners and angles, but still easily navigable with a cane. I can find my way from our room on the fourth (and top) floor down the hall to the elevator, to the breakfast dining hall on the first floor (it'd be the second floor in the US; here, the first floor is the first level above the ground floor), and even down to the lobby and front desk. Give me a week here and I'd know it like the back of my hand. As it is, in the short two and half days we have here, I'm making some wrong turns and happy for a helpful push in the right direction every now and then.
I suppose it was inevitable that at some point we'd hit the wall and need serious shut-down time. I hit it last night and went to bed while it was still light. Linda hit it this morning and stayed in bed until mid-afternoon. We were just exhausted after traveling here from Gothenburg, even though the trip actually went well. We learned some things about traveling with all our baggage and are refining our travel strategy.
For one thing, packing light and being able to carry it all with you is smart, and we're both doing that well. But the fact is, it's still awkward and cumbersome at times. The backpack can be a hassle to get on and off, as well as uncomfortable indoors on top of my parka. Add the hot flashes and I'm a veritable perambulating sweat sauna. Plus there is the fact that carrying the weight on your back is a different and more intense strain than rolling it behind you, like LInda does. For her part, it's work to maneuver her bag plus backpack-loaded me around, and she has to be careful that stretching her arm back to pull her bag doesn't throw her neck out of kilter.
Bottom line: we're doing a good job of dealing with our loads, but we are happy for all the help we can get, thank you thank you takk takk dankga dankga!
The help we received from KLM Airlines and the Gothenburg Lendvetter Airport staff was very good. KLM was a nice surprise after our experience with the SAS folks in San Francisco. When we asked them for assistance to get through security, they refused and said I had to rely on Linda. But when Linda and I walked up to the KLM counter at Lendvetter, the agent asked what kind of help she could give me, and I said, "I'd really like some help getting through security."
It was great help, too; the guy was friendly and helpful and the security checkpoint process was a smooth one, even with both of our carry-on bags. Lendvetter is not a big airport, but it's well-designed and well-appointed. Linda found it easy to navigate and it was a comfortable wait for our flight.
The help we received when we arrived at Amsterdam Schiopel Airport was amazing. As soon as I stepped out in the aisle of the plane with my backpack on and cane out, a KLM flight attendant came up to me with hands stretched forward to me, grasped my hand, and asked, "Is this the best way for me to help you?"
Wow. What a delight, to be actually asked if the help offered me really works for me. "Thank you so much for asking," I told him, "and this is just perfect." He led me through the plane to the door, and put my hand on the railing to the stairs down to the tarmac (for smaller flights like ours, Schiopel buses passengers between the terminal and the planes out on the tarmac, similar to the way Washington DC Dulles International Airport does). I was met at the bottom of the stairs and smoothly led to the bus, and my backpack stowed. When we arrived near what I assume was an entrance to the terminal, someone else helped me get the backpack on, and then I was asked if I wanted a wheelchair.
"I'm OK to walk," I said (having no idea what I was getting into), "but if it's easier for you I don't mind getting into a wheelchair." We set off at a brisk pace, walking on a roped-off path through what seemed like a garage for the airport service vehicles. After about five minutes we turned through a door into a huge dimly-lit cave, where I was handed over to a woman who asked, "Are you OK? Do you need a wheelchair?"
"I'm OK," I said, and I was. The pack did not feel too heavy and I was keeping up with the brisk pace just fine. So off we went, at a slightly faster pace this time. I thought we were taking a shortcut through the belly of the airport to the sidewalk outside and on to our taxi. After about ten minutes of this we stopped for a minute and another guide came up to me.
"How are you doing? I am going to take you to your taxi." He had a nice deep voice.
"I'm good," I said. I was breathing a little hard by now but it was nice to know we'd be at the taxi really soon.
"Do you want a wheelchair?"
"Thanks, but walking is OK." I thought we only had a little ways more to go.
All this time Linda was trotting right behind us, pulling her bag. Now I took her arm and our guide took her rolling bag. He told us to follow him, and set off. His pace may have been a nice stroll for him but we were trotting -- indeed, galloping -- to keep up with him. He led us through a dizzying maze of caverns full of people, counters, roped-off areas, ramps up and down, sharp corners and hairpin turns.
After about ten minutes I sensed we were moving through a wide-open area of the terminal, and I asked Linda, "What are the colors here anyway?"
"Mary I have no idea," she gasped, "I'm just trying to keep up!!"
And then we burst through a door out onto the sidewalk. Our guide kept right on going and we galloped behind him. Between huffs and puffs Linda told me he'd told her he was going to talk to the taxi driver before we got in to make sure we got a fair rate.
Finally we reached our taxi. Linda and I were both breathing hard, and once I'd stopped, I could feel my legs trembling. I needed help getting my backpack off. We waited a minute while our guide talked to the driver, and then he came back to us, kissed us on the cheek and gave us a big hug before helping us into the taxi.
"Wow, I'm not doing that again," Linda said, still breathing hard.
"And I absolutely promise I'll always do the wheelchair from now on," I said.
Linda had told me Schiopel Airport was huge compared to Lendvetter, and I believed her, but I didn't comprehend just how big and busy and complex. Neither did she, actually; she said Schiopel was not so big or busy when she went through it nine years ago. We were very happy we had such great guides, even if they did gallop us through.
And how can you beat a sweet kiss on the cheek and a warm bear hug for a nice welcome to Amsterdam??
By the time we'd checked into our hotel room, unloaded our bags and freshened up a bit, we were very tired but wanted some dinner. We learned there was a pub nearby and set out. I came to my wall about a block from the hotel. All of a sudden I felt so wobbly I almost fell. "Linda, I can't do this, I'm about to fall down," I told her. "I'm sorry but I better get back to our room and crash."
After she got me back to the room and set off to find dinner for us, I took a shower, got into my jammies and into bed. I don't remember Linda getting back to the room, and I didn't wake up until I just after dawn. When I put my CI on I could hear the lovely good morning birdsong and it perked me right up.
Linda was nowhere near perked up, though. Her iPhone alarm went off at eight, and it alarmed me all right, but I could tell she was sleeping right through it. I hesitated to wake her, but I knew she wanted to be up for breakfast and then get ready for the tulip tour we planned to do today. So I woke her and told her it was OK if she wanted to sleep some more.
"No, I need coffee," and she got up. She was such a zombie at breakfast that I was seriously worried. I could tell there was no way she could handle any kind of tiptoeing through any tulip tour. I told her she should just go back to bed, but she didn't want to give up our plans for the day. Finally, she admitted, "I think I'm at my wall."
"Yes, you are," I agreed, and talked her into canceling our reservations for the tulip tour today. "I know exactly how you feel -- I hit my wall last night," I reminded her.
So she crashed, and I had a good writing session. She woke up about an hour ago (3 p.m.), and is her usual human and sunny Linda self again, so we're off in a few minutes for a walk to find some coffee and some more selfie opportunities.
Some short shots:
Airport food:
The only airport meal we've had was at Gothenburg Lendvetter. We had time for lunch before our flight, and Lendvetter offered several options. I had a shrimp salad, served in a big white ceramic bowl with crisply fresh greens, tender asparagus and other good veggies, and lots of excellent shrimp, all the way down to the bottom of the bowl. Linda opted for a classic Swedish noodle dish with chicken that smelled wonderful. She cleaned her plate too.
On the whole my impression is that European airports provide better food than American airports because, on the whole, Europeans take their food more seriously. Burger King, McDonald's and that ilk are here, yes, but thankful it's still easier to find good food than the American fast food joints.
As to airplane food, Linda and I thought the dinner and breakfast provided on our SAS flight to Copenhagen were very good and much better than anything we'd get on a domestic American flight. (Although I still think the meals I had on Singapore Air and Philippine Airlines when I went to India four years ago were the best.) What surprised me was that even on a short one-hour flight between Gothenburg and Amsterdam, KLM served us a snack of a very good wrap sandwich and bottled water. You'd never get anything like that on a one-hour flight in the US.
Hotels.com reservations:
Linda made our Hotel Aalders reservation on Hotels.com, and selected a room with two double beds. But when we got here, we were told they had no rooms with double beds. "It's right here on my reservation," Linda said, showing Ms. Snippy the check-in clerk the reservation print-out. "It says two double beds. Right here."
"Well that was on Expedia."
"No it was not. It was Hotels.com."
"Well we have no control over how they advertise our rooms, and I can assure you we have no double beds."
It wasn't the best of moments, but Linda handled it well. She asked to see the room, and when she came back down to the lobby, she told me, "Well, I guess we can make it work."
And, as I said, the room is small but it works. We pushed the twin beds apart and made some space between the beds, and we being able to open the windows. The room is spotlessly clean, well appointed, and except for Ms. Snippy who checked us in, the staff here are just wonderful.
So ... Now we know not to trust Hotels.com. Better to use them to find prospective hotels, then contact the hotels directly (and make reservation directly have with hotel) to confirm you're getting what the reservation information promises.
IPad Peeves:
Thanks to my genius geek friend Megan McHugh, I now know about the Shake to Undo feature that can restore my inadvertent deletions of whole documents. I got a kick out of Megan writing me that SHE did a major cringe to read about how I lost my entire Copenhagen letter and had to re-write the whole thing. Trust me, she didn't cringe nearly as much as I did.
So now I have another iPad issue. How do I turn off the damn auto-correct feature? Every time I write about hotel windows the iPad capitalizes it in honor of Bill Gates (really, I thought Apple and Microsoft were rivals) and I have to go back and fiddle around with my corrections until I can get the lower-case "w" to stick. The iPad doesn't like me saying "thank you" in Swedish and keeps putting in "talk" for "takk." And when I wrote about getting into my jammies, it kept turning it into "Jammie's" to my intense irritation. This is developing into a major peeve.
OK, we're off to unpeeve (now that just took me four tries to keep it from turning into "unpeeled") with some good strong coffee and a walk in the park to catch some selfies.
I learned new things at every lesson, and will use them all at home.
I'd happily do this tour again.
One more reason to appreciate being able to hear with my CI, along with one more reason to appreciate hotel rooms with windows that actualy open.
The Hotel Aalders is in Amsterdam's museum district, on a quiet side street and just minutes from the tram, parks, pubs and cafes, museums and other attractions. Our room is small but it works. Totally wheelchair-impossible but a piece of cake for an ambulatory blind lady.
There are no wide open spaces here for me to get lost in. This place is old European -- old Amsterdam -- and full of odd steps up and down, nooks and crannies, weird corners and angles, but still easily navigable with a cane. I can find my way from our room on the fourth (and top) floor down the hall to the elevator, to the breakfast dining hall on the first floor (it'd be the second floor in the US; here, the first floor is the first level above the ground floor), and even down to the lobby and front desk. Give me a week here and I'd know it like the back of my hand. As it is, in the short two and half days we have here, I'm making some wrong turns and happy for a helpful push in the right direction every now and then.
I suppose it was inevitable that at some point we'd hit the wall and need serious shut-down time. I hit it last night and went to bed while it was still light. Linda hit it this morning and stayed in bed until mid-afternoon. We were just exhausted after traveling here from Gothenburg, even though the trip actually went well. We learned some things about traveling with all our baggage and are refining our travel strategy.
For one thing, packing light and being able to carry it all with you is smart, and we're both doing that well. But the fact is, it's still awkward and cumbersome at times. The backpack can be a hassle to get on and off, as well as uncomfortable indoors on top of my parka. Add the hot flashes and I'm a veritable perambulating sweat sauna. Plus there is the fact that carrying the weight on your back is a different and more intense strain than rolling it behind you, like LInda does. For her part, it's work to maneuver her bag plus backpack-loaded me around, and she has to be careful that stretching her arm back to pull her bag doesn't throw her neck out of kilter.
Bottom line: we're doing a good job of dealing with our loads, but we are happy for all the help we can get, thank you thank you takk takk dankga dankga!
The help we received from KLM Airlines and the Gothenburg Lendvetter Airport staff was very good. KLM was a nice surprise after our experience with the SAS folks in San Francisco. When we asked them for assistance to get through security, they refused and said I had to rely on Linda. But when Linda and I walked up to the KLM counter at Lendvetter, the agent asked what kind of help she could give me, and I said, "I'd really like some help getting through security."
It was great help, too; the guy was friendly and helpful and the security checkpoint process was a smooth one, even with both of our carry-on bags. Lendvetter is not a big airport, but it's well-designed and well-appointed. Linda found it easy to navigate and it was a comfortable wait for our flight.
The help we received when we arrived at Amsterdam Schiopel Airport was amazing. As soon as I stepped out in the aisle of the plane with my backpack on and cane out, a KLM flight attendant came up to me with hands stretched forward to me, grasped my hand, and asked, "Is this the best way for me to help you?"
Wow. What a delight, to be actually asked if the help offered me really works for me. "Thank you so much for asking," I told him, "and this is just perfect." He led me through the plane to the door, and put my hand on the railing to the stairs down to the tarmac (for smaller flights like ours, Schiopel buses passengers between the terminal and the planes out on the tarmac, similar to the way Washington DC Dulles International Airport does). I was met at the bottom of the stairs and smoothly led to the bus, and my backpack stowed. When we arrived near what I assume was an entrance to the terminal, someone else helped me get the backpack on, and then I was asked if I wanted a wheelchair.
"I'm OK to walk," I said (having no idea what I was getting into), "but if it's easier for you I don't mind getting into a wheelchair." We set off at a brisk pace, walking on a roped-off path through what seemed like a garage for the airport service vehicles. After about five minutes we turned through a door into a huge dimly-lit cave, where I was handed over to a woman who asked, "Are you OK? Do you need a wheelchair?"
"I'm OK," I said, and I was. The pack did not feel too heavy and I was keeping up with the brisk pace just fine. So off we went, at a slightly faster pace this time. I thought we were taking a shortcut through the belly of the airport to the sidewalk outside and on to our taxi. After about ten minutes of this we stopped for a minute and another guide came up to me.
"How are you doing? I am going to take you to your taxi." He had a nice deep voice.
"I'm good," I said. I was breathing a little hard by now but it was nice to know we'd be at the taxi really soon.
"Do you want a wheelchair?"
"Thanks, but walking is OK." I thought we only had a little ways more to go.
All this time Linda was trotting right behind us, pulling her bag. Now I took her arm and our guide took her rolling bag. He told us to follow him, and set off. His pace may have been a nice stroll for him but we were trotting -- indeed, galloping -- to keep up with him. He led us through a dizzying maze of caverns full of people, counters, roped-off areas, ramps up and down, sharp corners and hairpin turns.
After about ten minutes I sensed we were moving through a wide-open area of the terminal, and I asked Linda, "What are the colors here anyway?"
"Mary I have no idea," she gasped, "I'm just trying to keep up!!"
And then we burst through a door out onto the sidewalk. Our guide kept right on going and we galloped behind him. Between huffs and puffs Linda told me he'd told her he was going to talk to the taxi driver before we got in to make sure we got a fair rate.
Finally we reached our taxi. Linda and I were both breathing hard, and once I'd stopped, I could feel my legs trembling. I needed help getting my backpack off. We waited a minute while our guide talked to the driver, and then he came back to us, kissed us on the cheek and gave us a big hug before helping us into the taxi.
"Wow, I'm not doing that again," Linda said, still breathing hard.
"And I absolutely promise I'll always do the wheelchair from now on," I said.
Linda had told me Schiopel Airport was huge compared to Lendvetter, and I believed her, but I didn't comprehend just how big and busy and complex. Neither did she, actually; she said Schiopel was not so big or busy when she went through it nine years ago. We were very happy we had such great guides, even if they did gallop us through.
And how can you beat a sweet kiss on the cheek and a warm bear hug for a nice welcome to Amsterdam??
By the time we'd checked into our hotel room, unloaded our bags and freshened up a bit, we were very tired but wanted some dinner. We learned there was a pub nearby and set out. I came to my wall about a block from the hotel. All of a sudden I felt so wobbly I almost fell. "Linda, I can't do this, I'm about to fall down," I told her. "I'm sorry but I better get back to our room and crash."
After she got me back to the room and set off to find dinner for us, I took a shower, got into my jammies and into bed. I don't remember Linda getting back to the room, and I didn't wake up until I just after dawn. When I put my CI on I could hear the lovely good morning birdsong and it perked me right up.
Linda was nowhere near perked up, though. Her iPhone alarm went off at eight, and it alarmed me all right, but I could tell she was sleeping right through it. I hesitated to wake her, but I knew she wanted to be up for breakfast and then get ready for the tulip tour we planned to do today. So I woke her and told her it was OK if she wanted to sleep some more.
"No, I need coffee," and she got up. She was such a zombie at breakfast that I was seriously worried. I could tell there was no way she could handle any kind of tiptoeing through any tulip tour. I told her she should just go back to bed, but she didn't want to give up our plans for the day. Finally, she admitted, "I think I'm at my wall."
"Yes, you are," I agreed, and talked her into canceling our reservations for the tulip tour today. "I know exactly how you feel -- I hit my wall last night," I reminded her.
So she crashed, and I had a good writing session. She woke up about an hour ago (3 p.m.), and is her usual human and sunny Linda self again, so we're off in a few minutes for a walk to find some coffee and some more selfie opportunities.
Some short shots:
Airport food:
The only airport meal we've had was at Gothenburg Lendvetter. We had time for lunch before our flight, and Lendvetter offered several options. I had a shrimp salad, served in a big white ceramic bowl with crisply fresh greens, tender asparagus and other good veggies, and lots of excellent shrimp, all the way down to the bottom of the bowl. Linda opted for a classic Swedish noodle dish with chicken that smelled wonderful. She cleaned her plate too.
On the whole my impression is that European airports provide better food than American airports because, on the whole, Europeans take their food more seriously. Burger King, McDonald's and that ilk are here, yes, but thankful it's still easier to find good food than the American fast food joints.
As to airplane food, Linda and I thought the dinner and breakfast provided on our SAS flight to Copenhagen were very good and much better than anything we'd get on a domestic American flight. (Although I still think the meals I had on Singapore Air and Philippine Airlines when I went to India four years ago were the best.) What surprised me was that even on a short one-hour flight between Gothenburg and Amsterdam, KLM served us a snack of a very good wrap sandwich and bottled water. You'd never get anything like that on a one-hour flight in the US.
Hotels.com reservations:
Linda made our Hotel Aalders reservation on Hotels.com, and selected a room with two double beds. But when we got here, we were told they had no rooms with double beds. "It's right here on my reservation," Linda said, showing Ms. Snippy the check-in clerk the reservation print-out. "It says two double beds. Right here."
"Well that was on Expedia."
"No it was not. It was Hotels.com."
"Well we have no control over how they advertise our rooms, and I can assure you we have no double beds."
It wasn't the best of moments, but Linda handled it well. She asked to see the room, and when she came back down to the lobby, she told me, "Well, I guess we can make it work."
And, as I said, the room is small but it works. We pushed the twin beds apart and made some space between the beds, and we being able to open the windows. The room is spotlessly clean, well appointed, and except for Ms. Snippy who checked us in, the staff here are just wonderful.
So ... Now we know not to trust Hotels.com. Better to use them to find prospective hotels, then contact the hotels directly (and make reservation directly have with hotel) to confirm you're getting what the reservation information promises.
IPad Peeves:
Thanks to my genius geek friend Megan McHugh, I now know about the Shake to Undo feature that can restore my inadvertent deletions of whole documents. I got a kick out of Megan writing me that SHE did a major cringe to read about how I lost my entire Copenhagen letter and had to re-write the whole thing. Trust me, she didn't cringe nearly as much as I did.
So now I have another iPad issue. How do I turn off the damn auto-correct feature? Every time I write about hotel windows the iPad capitalizes it in honor of Bill Gates (really, I thought Apple and Microsoft were rivals) and I have to go back and fiddle around with my corrections until I can get the lower-case "w" to stick. The iPad doesn't like me saying "thank you" in Swedish and keeps putting in "talk" for "takk." And when I wrote about getting into my jammies, it kept turning it into "Jammie's" to my intense irritation. This is developing into a major peeve.
OK, we're off to unpeeve (now that just took me four tries to keep it from turning into "unpeeled") with some good strong coffee and a walk in the park to catch some selfies.
I learned new things at every lesson, and will use them all at home.
I'd happily do this tour again.
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