Follow Me Around the World

Today was our final day in Amsterdam.  I was ready to move on.  Three times in 5 years is plenty in my mind as it is a very expensive place to visit and after you have seen the sights becomes kind of boring.  Again you all know I hate to go to places more than once since I have so many left on my list.  So for me to go to Amsterdam three times, it is a little much.  We had several hours to kill once we checked out and so we thought we would go to the cinema and see a movie.  When we got down there everything was closed.  Apparently on Mondays until 12 or 1230PM everything is closed.  So we walked around, got some food, got some coffee (not me of course) and then I convinced everyone to go to these electronic casinos.

Basically throughout Amsterdam they have like casinos where they have electronic slot machines, electronic roulette, poker and other types of games.  I initially thought that the electroinc roulette would be rigged (meaning that the ball would be magnetized or something), but as it turned out that wasn’t the case at all.  I sat down at one of the roulette tables with no one else playing.  I thought it would go quicker and I wanted to try my luck.  So I put in 10 Euros in 2 Euro coins and started to play.  It took some time to figure out and after I had lost all my 10 Euros I decided to play 4 Euros more.  Boy am I glad that I did, even after Sarah said to me “Josh that is your train money!”

Well within 4 or 5 spins of the wheel I had turned 4 Euros in to 24 Euros!  Now it wasn’t a tremendous amount of money but I walked away a winner, which I was very happy about.  Not as happy as when I won 330 Euros at the Monte Carlo in Monaco but it would do just fine for today and make for a nice story when I get home.  After the Casino the remaining  members of the tribe stopped quickly for some Febo (a very popular vending machine place in Amsterdam), and then back to the hostel.  Once back at the hostel, we relaxed for about an hour.

At around 145PM it was time to gather up our luggage from the luggage storage room and start walking to Central Station to take the train to Schipol Airport.  Henk came with us since he was taking a train back to get his car.  Before leaving we said goodbye to the rest of the group who weren’t leaving until tomorrow and that was that.

Once at Central Station we bought our tickets and waited for the train.  I had so much crap with me (even though surprisingly I have bought NOTHING the entire trip!) it was starting to weigh me down waiting for the train.  But the train arrived only 5 minutes late and before we knew it we were at Schipol.  Once at Schipol I had to check in with EasyJet since I was checking a piece of luggage.  I immediately found a trolley so I could push my stuff rather than carry it.  There are many trolleys around the airport so don’t worry when you get there.

The line to check in was horrible.  It was snaking around the airport and it took about 30 minutes to check in.  After checking in the three of us (Linda, Sarah and I) went to McDonalds.  Now I haven’t had McDonalds in a long time and it was just as nasty as I remember.  Even though it tastes so good it is so bad for you and with my tiny cholesterol problem (255 last time I got it checked) I’m sure it wouldn’t help, oh well.  Then it was time to head towards the gate.  When we got to the gate after going through security (no problems this time) I waited a long time for the gate to be called while the girls waited with the luggage.  Finally the gate was called, and we knew right away that the flight would be delayed.

The flight would take less than 1.5 hours to get to Genève but from the airport it was quite a trip to get to where Linda lived which was a small town calked Sugiez in the Le Vully region.  From the airport we took one train to Fribourg and then had 30 minutes to kill.  So we decided we would get some food.  We landed on some small Chinese place but after realizing that the food would take too long we got it to go and then went to catch our second train.  This was a local train that made several stops before her stop which was again Sugiez.  From the train station I schlepped all my stuff to her house.  Up a hill and down a hill, through the snow and in the freezing cold, but after a ten minute or so walk we arrived at her home.  Linda’s home was spectacular.  Very old from the outside and fairly modern within.  They even have a heated indoor pool, but there was no time to swim.  We arrived fairly late, I unpacked my stuff and then gathered up the necessary items for the next few days of skiing in the Swiss Alps!  See Sarah comes from a tiny village called Naters (population approximately 8,000), and her family has a Suisse Chalet in the mountains above her village called Belalp.  So we decided we would drive to the  mountains and spend a few days relaxing and skiing.

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