It almost seems anticlimactic to report that our flights to Amsterdam went right on schedule and were uneventful.  So to interject a little excitement I’ll report that, the day before we left, I took a second look at an emailed itinerary that I had received from Air Canada a couple of weeks ago.  I hadn’t given it more than a cursory review when it when it arrived (big mistake), assuming it was just an update of what I’d received earlier.  To my surprise I discovered that our itinerary had completely changed.  Instead of being routed through Ottawa-Frankfurt-Amsterdam we had been changed to Montreal-Munich-Amsterdam.  Our return had changed from Budapest-London-Edmonton to Budapest-Frankfurt-Toronto-Edmonton.

Fortunately our times hadn’t changed significantly.  We left within 5 minutes of the original departure time and we arrived in Amsterdam an hour later in the afternoon than our original schedule.  And, as I mentioned earlier, the trip was pretty straight forward.  I did discover, though, that when arriving in Munich and going through security, that not only do you have to take out your laptop (which is normal) but I also had to take out all other electronics and put them in the tray.  That meant unpacking my camera bag and depositing 4 cameras and a flash in the bin which then went through the X-ray separately.

Once in Amsterdam there are a number of alternatives to get from the airport to the hotel.  One of the easiest, and cheapest, is to take the bus.  We found the bus stop literally within steps of the front door of the airport, bought our tickets, and were soon on our way for the 30 minute ride to our hotel.  The bus stop at Leideplein is right across the street from our hotel.

Room with view

We quickly checked in and made our way to our room, which is enormous by European standards and overlooks a canal.  Exhausted after a long day and night of travelling we relaxed for a couple of hours.

Eventually I regained enough energy to go for a short walk around the area to take some photos.

Canal in Amsterdam

Bicycle parking lot on a barge

Statue in a park near hotel

Down the block from hotel

Corner of our hotel

After returning to the room we headed out in search of supper.  Our first stop was the hotel bar (the cafe being fully booked) where we had a drink.  The food menu and beer selection was very limited so we strolled over to an area about a block away that had lots of restaurants. We settled for an Irish pub which had both good food and beer.