Thursday

 Woke up to the alarm at 9am. We slept so late!

We got dressed and I introduced To to the hotel buffet. T, like me, thought it was pretty, but the customer service was slack. The short order cook refused to make me fried eggs (said he had no lighter for the stove). The dishes and cups in the to-use stack were indifferently clean. And many parts of the buffet had run out and were not refilled. They were clearly getting ready for the lunch shift and not interested in us breakfast eaters.

We pack up our stuff and took a shuttle to the airport, where we checked into a much nicer hotel. Nice sink, great bed, shorter walk to the train, all good!

We got 3-day train passes and took the train into Amsterdam Central to wander. And there was great meandering! I had crepes and cider (2 chances to rest my feet). We saw a plastic duck shop and a tiny painted cow shop. No, no space in our return luggage!

We talked about going on a canal tour and ended up booking one from the internet while sitting in a pub. Yay for internet access on my phone! We'll go tomorrow.

We headed back to the train and our hotel as the sun set at about 5:30pm. That is the time most of the town shuts down anyway.

My hotel this week

 The customer chose my hotel in Amsterdam based on walking distance from the training facility. It was still a 20 min walk (for me. 15 min for people with healthy feet) in the cold. The hotel was... weird.

I've tried hard to think of positive things to say about the hotel.

* It was pretty inside and out. I took some pictures.

* The staff all spoke perfect English. Ok, everyone here speaks perfect English, but it still counts.

* It was only 20 minutes walking distance from work. No traffic blockages.

* The water worked. It turned hot and cold on command. 

* There was a toilet and shower in the hotel room. I did not have to share with a stranger.

* There was a safe in the room.

Yeah, I'm reaching. 

Now for the things I didn't like.

* There was no Kleenex. I missed Kleenex. Using toilet paper on my poor nose just isn't the same. And my nose didn't like the dry air.

* There was no washcloth. I missed washclothes, especially as the shower water dripped in my eyes when I tried to wash my face. Ok, this is typical of European hotels, but I still miss my washcloth. No, it is too much to pack one. Most hotels have them.

* The bed was too soft. T said his lower back hurts today from it.

* The bed was two single beds pushed together. T kept falling in the crack.

* The shower was a work of art in the middle of the room. It leaked half the time. It was hard to find a good water temperature -- it tended to go straight from burning hot to ice cold with the tiniest touch on the control. There was no place to put the soap or shampoo in the shower. My students called it a "Beam me up, Scotty!" shower because it was a clear glass tube in the middle of the hotel room.

* No gym.

* No drawers for clothing or possession storage. There was a closet which had some shelves. Not many, and hard to see into with the room lighting. I ended up using the flashlight on my phone to see in them.

* The chairs were cheap plastic and quite uncomfortable. Like IKEA chairs or cafeteria chairs.

* The sink was in a corner of the one long flat surface, extending into an almost unusable desk (the desk "chair" was a square block, and the desk surface was entirely covered by a phone, a coffee maker, and a bundle of hotel papers). Most of the counter between sink and so-called desk was consumed by a huge THING I'm guessing the hotel feels was art. I moved it to the floor where it utterly blocked access to the desk. 

* I've used a lot of sinks in a lot of hotels. This was the absolute WORST (assuming all comparable sinks actually worked without leaking in a obviously broken way). The sink was a raised bowl. But the bowl was not symmetric. One side was quite short. Every time I washed my hands, I splashed water on the counter. I could not block the drain even with my amazing sink stopper (they deliberately made the drain too big). Even if I could have blocked it up, my travel cereal bowl could hold more water! So I ended up washing clothes every day in my travel cereal bowl. HATED that sink!

* The toilet was in a tiny enclosed room. No light switch, it had a motion activated light. You can imagine what happened next. .... "Damn it!" *waves arms*

We changed hotels this morning. The new hotel is nicer, more standard, more useful and less artistry over function.