Category: The Netherlands

We battled jet lag last night and while we had a couple of nice conversations in the middle of the night we were not up and about very early. We did hear our new nemesis the mouse rattling about a couple of times so one more stop was added to our plans for the day.

About 11 am we joined the Sunday exodus from the campground but instead of heading on we were just heading out. The first stop for the day was a nearby Praxis (the Dutch equivalent of Home Depot) to purchase a couple of mouse traps.

One of the benefits of Amsterdam as a starting point for our trips is there are several Asian Groceries. We visited a couple of them nearby so are well stocked with essentials for Ton.

The disadvantage of Amsterdam is the conventional groceries (Lidl and the local chain Albert Heijn) are difficult to access in a motorhome compared to other cities. We picked a location that had both a Lidl and Albert Heijn, but when we got there about a third of the parking lot was dug up so parking was impossible. Ton remembered there was an Albert Heijn near the campground so we headed over there. The parking lot for the store was full, but we were able to find a parking lot a couple of hundred meters away, so we have adequate food for the next few days.

We arrived back to the a much emptier campground and had our first proper meal of the trip and relaxed for the rest of the day.

We arrived early at the airport in Portland expecting it to be busy due to spring break. We ended up breezing thru all of the lines because the airport was well prepared for the rush.

Our flight over left on time and arrived about 10 minutes early. Schiphol airport in Amsterdam is interesting because unlike most airports in the world where you are herded directly into the immigration hall for processing, Schiphol releases you into the departure terminal and you have to find your way thru all of the gates and shops to the immigration hall. It throws me off as it does not feel right. The immigration check was pretty busy so we spent some time there, but it worked out as our bags were waiting for us when we got thru.

After a quick Uber to the storage we found François waiting for us. We turned on the gas, filled him up with water and headed out to a local grocery store to get our initial stock of food. We are planning to spend some time exploring Amsterdam so we picked a camp ground about 20 minutes by train from the city center. It is quite pricey but it has everything we want. Today was the first day all of the facilities were available and it is very busy for March.

Ton worked hard putting everything in order in François. And since everything I am responsible for was working, I mostly stayed out of her way. We were well settled in by 2pm and took a short nap to celebrate.