We Made It!

We arrived at LAX yesterday morning with plenty of time to spare (thanks Dad and Katie!). Since we got there so early, Christina and I spent most of our time reading, snacking, and watching a possibly mentally retarded teenager nibble at pretzels until they fit on his fingers (we ended up sitting on the opposite side of the plane from him so, sadly, we were unable to witness anymore orally altered snacks).

Chris and I boarded our plane (a Boeing 747-700) on time, in seats 44K and 44J respectively. Christina was seated next to a window to which her forehead would be pressed against for the next 10 hours. Next to me was Tom. Tom is from Oxnard. He has lots of freckles. He told us stories of his many travels, his short-lived teaching carreer, failed attempts of learning chinese, and a KISS concert he attended back in '96. He was on his way to Greece where he was going to bike and camp across the country's mainland and numerous islands for the next few weeks. You can imagine how jealous we were. Tom was also nice enough to tell us not to give any Brits a backwards peace sign with our hand. It's similar to giving someone the finger, and just as offensive. Good to know. Thanks Tom.

In between Tom's stories, we enjoyed the on-board entertainment. This consisted of personal viewing screens that played a variety of looping movies and television programs. Despite the excellent selection, we usually had our screens tuned to a channel that showed the flight's progress.

The flight went on without a hitch, except for the small fact that, due to the busy-ness of Heathrow Airport, we landed nearly a half hour later than scheduled. This would not have posed any problems if it weren't for the fact we had to catch a connecting flight to Amsterdam, which still doesn't seem like too much trouble, until you hear what we had to go through to get to it:

First we had to walk dow a long, windy, long concourse to get to the security checkpoint. Then wait in line, which was at least 100 people deep, th go through the secutrity checkpoint. Walk to the tram station and wait for a tram to drive us 10 minutes to the International Departure Terminal. At this point, we had exactly 5 minutes to make it to our gate. We had to look up the gate number and, upon discovering it was the furthest possible gate, we ran-walked the whole way there. Tired and sweaty, we arrived just in time, or so we thought. In reality, we had plenty of time. The departure to Amsterdam was delayed half an hour, due to the late arrival of our previous flight. Sigh.

Needless to say we made it onto our second flight. It was a short one, only 45 minutes, but what it lacked in duration it made up for in excitement. Amsterdam was especially windy today and, upon landing the plane, the pilot found it difficult to control and we were jerked around quite a bit. Luckily, that was all we had to deal with.

We deboarded, went through customs, and picked up our luggage, all within 20 minutes. Then a new challenge arose. How do we get into town? After an unecessary amount of confused wandering, we decided to take the train to Central Station. We still had to find a way to our hotel from there so, after another unecessary amount of confused wandering, we hopped on the subway. After getting off at the second stop, Waterlooplein, which was the closest to our hotel, maybe, we were lost. We stared at our low detail map and with some patience, logic and luck, we soon found our home for the next few days, the Eden Hotel. It was probably about 4:30 in the afternoon, and we were exhausted when we checked in. Neither of us was expecting too much in the way of quality for our room. I have read accomodations in Amsterdam to be "expensive and keeps comfort to a minimum". Chris and I would both agree. Our room boasts the oddest toilet I have ever seen, a gaping hole in the ceiling, and a view of, well, other hotel rooms. But, it does have a bed, a warm shower, and a place to put our stuff down, and that, at this point, is priceless.

We freshened up a bit and walked around to get a feel for where we were. We ar staying right in front of a major canal, Amstel. There are bicycles everywhere, and we learned real quick to step aside upon hearing a bell coming up behind you. There were also lots of signs warning of pic-pocketters. Being the smart, aware girls we are, both Chris and I returned with our wallets. We found some cute shops and eateries. We stopped in a small market on the way back to our hotel and bought apples, drinks, crackers and some dutch cheese recommended by the store's owner for a light dinner we could eat in our room. It was perfect.

That pretty much ended our day. Christina is sleeping now, as I wish I were, while I rush to finish writing about our first day of our European Escapades. I have a can of Coca Cola Light (Diet Coke) and one of the few english television stations on to help keep me awake. We may do a bike tour tomorrow and possibly try to get a museum out of the way, so I'd better join Chris in dreamland.

We hope everyone's doing as fantastic as we are, and we love and miss you all!

We post another blog soo!

-Jessica & Christina