Flying Buccaneer

Thursday, January 1

After ringing in 2009, we set the alarm for 9:00 a.m. The alarm went off, we threw on our clothes, and went to Pulitzers for breakfast. As we walked in, I heard the host say, “Yes, we are serving breakfast until 1:00 o’clock today, so you can sleep a little longer.” Considering that most of Amsterdam is closed on January 1, I began to wonder if we should have slept a little longer, too.

We took our time at breakfast and then went back to the room. Mr. FB decided to get some more sleep, and I gave in and purchased 24 hours of internet access in the room for €19. Pretty steep, yes, but I wanted to upload a video to YouTube as well as purchase some music from iTunes. Neither would have been possible on the computers in the business center.

We decided to get moving a little after noon, and after showering and dressing, we went for a walk. By the way, I don’t know if someone from the hotel is reading this trip report, but since I posted that the towels were “bargain basement,” we have received larger towels. However, they are still the thin kind you would expect to see at a hotel in a much lower category.

We didn’t expect to see much open, and in the area near the hotel there was little activity. Our concierge told us that museums, major retailers, and most restaurants would not open. However, as we walked up Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal we saw more activity. Take-away restaurants, convenience stores, and souvenir shops were open. To my delight, one of my mainstays in Amsterdam, the Soupkitchen, was open. I discovered this place in early 2001, and it serves up delicious soups and great prices. There’s always a variety, and just about every day in Amsterdam is a soup day! We both had the tomato with couscous and shaved parmesan.

After our quick lunch break we decided to walk down Nieuwendijk. Again, we saw lots of open souvenir shops, but since we weren’t shopping for souvenirs we cut across one of the alleyways to Damrak, near the Bourse. We crossed Damrak and walked to the Oude Kerk. I have always loved the fact that in the shadow of the Old Church are windows where prostitutes beckon passersby! We walked down Oudezijds Voorburgwal taking pictures of the church from different angles. As in many other areas of Amsterdam today, the streets were covered with spent fireworks and their dust. However, these canals seemed to have had a little more rubbish dumped into them than in others in the city.

We walked to the south a bit, then turned west toward Rokin and walked toward Muntplein and then Rembrandtplein. To my delight, my favorite friteur was open for business, so I ordered a medium cone “oorlog.” That is, I ordered mine with mayonnaise and peanut sauce. It sounds terrible, and it tastes great. I will always be grateful to the guy who introduced me to this during a visit to Amsterdam 10 years ago!

There wasn’t much left for us to do in the gray afternoon, so we walked back to the hotel to pack our bags and relax. Later in the evening, we caught a tram to Leidseplein and had dinner at Wagamama. Afterward, we took some pictures of the ice skaters at the rink near the tram stop and headed back to the hotel for one last time.

Flying Buccaneer

Friday, January 2

I set the alarm for 7:00 a.m. so that we could get going for the airport before 9:30 a.m. I awoke at before 6 a.m., grateful that I had another hour before the alarm, and then I couldn’t get back to sleep! When the alarm did go off, we dressed and went for breakfast.

Back at the room, we relaxed before getting ready for our flight. Our stay at the Hotel Pulitzer was satisfactory. I can’t say that it was anything better than that, but I won’t go as far as to say that we were dissatisfied. The hotel met our basic requirements, and exceeded a few. The bed was exceptionally comfortable, and the complimentary breakfast more than made up for the lack of an upgrade. However, as mentioned earlier, the towels were not up to the standards that I would expect from any Starwood hotel, much less one from the Luxury Collection. In addition, there was a sound from the heater that was annoying as well as noise from the people in the room above us walking around. I am sure that there are better rooms than the one we had (134), but I would have been extremely disappointed to have spent upwards of €235 per night to stay in that room. I would not spend 12,000 Starpoints per night to stay there again.

We checked out and the doorman got us a taxi to Centraal Station. The driver asked us where we were headed from there, and he told him Schiphol. He replied, “Thirty-five Euro, I can take you to Schiphol for €35.” We jumped at the offer, and we were at the UA counter checking our bags less than 30 minutes after we left the hotel.

The agent only checked our bags to IAD, because we were scheduled to transfer from IAD to DCA for our flight to TPA on US. We asked her if it would be possible to fly UA from IAD-TPA instead. She said, “I do not know, but an agent at the ticket counter could help you.” Then she gave a confused look and said, “I don’t even see your flight on USAirways in here, let me call the ticket agent.” After a few minutes, she hung up and said, “I have put you on our flight 1577 which leaves Dulles airport at 18:00. I don’t understand why they had you changing airports, but now you don’t have to.” She retagged our bags with TPA as the final destination, and wished us a pleasant journey. We thanked her heartily for her assistance!

We went through passport control and did a bit of browsing and some shopping. Then we walked to the lounge area to kill an hour before it was time to go to our gate. Unfortunately, the SQ Silver Kris Lounge was closed, so we had to go to the Servisair Lounge. At times this lounge can be OK, but at times it can be a dump. Today it was a dump. The only warm food was a single croquet under a heat lamp. There were packages of potato chips and some nuts in two small dishes. To make matters worse, three Americans and a middle-aged German man were having a loud conversation. All of this, along with the lack of a restroom and no free internet access soon led us to conclude that we might have a more pleasant wait at the gate area, so we left a little after 11:00 a.m.

There was a line for the gate, but we were able to go to the front. After the security interview and x-ray we found a couple of seats. Boarding started at 11:45 a.m.

United Airlines 947

AMS-IAD
Scheduled Departure/Arrival 12:20 p.m./2:59 p.m.
Actual Departure/Arrival 12:15 p.m./2:24 p.m.
B-777
Seats 1E and 1F

We boarded and were greeted by a very friendly FA who chatted with us for awhile while she served pre-departure drinks. The flight was full in Y, but boarding was orderly. Ten of 11 seats in F were occupied, in addition to the crew rest seat. We pushed back and 20 minutes later we were in the air. A FA came around a little later with warm towels, warm nuts, and taking drink and entrée orders.

MENU

appetizer
Crayfish Newburg crepe with red pepper coulis

soup
Creamy tomato soup

salad
Fresh seasonal greens with cherry tomatoes, julienne carrots, yellow peppers and croutons
Served with your choice of dressing: Creamy Peppercorn or Balsamic Vinaigrette

main course

Grilled filet mignon with porcini mushroom sauce
Roasted potato wedges with rosemary and lemon brown buttered asparagus

Spicy roasted corn-fed chicken breast ‘lava style’ with Brazilian lime sauce
Basmati rice with coriander and mixed green beans, carrots and navets

Maastrict-style lamb stew
Steamed parslied potatoes and roasted carrots with sage

Herb and cheese stuffed gnocchi with spinach cream sauce
Sauteed pumpkin and boletus mushrooms

dessert
Haagen-Dazs ice cream with sundae toppings

Cheese selection served with red grapes and crackers

Old Alkmaar – a buttery, mature Gouda-like taste, ripened to perfection
Bavarian Bleu – a soft blue cheese with a light tender taste
Mosterd – a semi-hard cheese with whole mustard grains and a light taste


lunch

Beef pastrami and fontina cheese bruschetta
Lyonnaise potatoes and honey grain mustard sauce

or

Chilled deli plate with Emmenthal cheese
Smoked hot lemon salmon, Kassler and mountain farmer ham

The seafood Newberg was good. It was served with an “off-the-menu” pesto that I saved as a spread for my bread. The tomato soup wasn’t very creamy, but it was a good transition to the salad. I chose the filet mignon which was cooked medium to medium-well. While I prefer my beef medium-rare, it was still juicy and flavorful. With all courses I had the Artesa Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 Reserve Napa Valley. I had a sundae for dessert.

After lunch I finished reading an article in January’s Vanity Fair (the one with Tina Fey on the cover) about the plane crash over Brazil in 2006 between a 737 and a private jet. I remembered reading something that Joe Sharkey, who had been a guest on the private jet, wrote about the experience and the detainment of the pilots in Brazil. Certainly not the best reading material at 38,000 feet, but I was interested.

I slept the next three hours and awoke somewhere between Greenland and the Canadian coast. A little more than an hour before landing, the FAs served the lunch, and I chose the bruschetta. It was a nice pre-arrival snack, served with a small bowl of strawberries, pineapple, and mango.

Our flight landed at 2:18 p.m. and taxied quickly to the gate. We said goodbye to what had been three great FAs working the F cabin, and deplaned. An unfortunate consequence of our early arrival was that a few other international flights arrived at the same time, and immigration was a zoo. We didn’t get through passport control until a little after 3:00 p.m., about thirty minutes after we entered the line.

After a long wait at passport control, you would expect your bags to be waiting for you, right? Nope. In fact, we went to the belt and waited. And waited some more. All of the bags were from a Tokyo flight. After about 15 minutes, pax from the Amsterdam flight were told to move to another belt, and at 3:19 p.m., bags started coming out. However, after a dozen or so, the bags stopped and we were told to go back to the original belt. Finally, at 3:29 p.m., our bags appeared. We went through customs, dropped our bags on the belt, went through security, and went to gate D-18 to wait a couple of hours for our flight to TPA.

United Airlines 1577

IAD-TPA
Scheduled Departure/Arrival 6:00 p.m./8:24 p.m.
Actual Departure/Arrival 6:00 p.m./8:13 p.m.
A-320
Seats 6A and 6B

We didn’t move from our seats at gate D-18, except when I went to get us something to drink and Mr. FB went for a short walk a little later. While he was gone, one of my former students walked up and said hello.

There were a lot of other people on our flight who had endured a long day of traveling. We saw quite a few BPs from LH and LO in the gate area and during boarding. We took our seats, and near the end of the boarding process, someone sat next to me. The door closed at 5:50 p.m., and he moved to 5F. I took 6C so we had an empty seat between us.

We pushed back at 6:00 p.m. and were on our way to TPA at 6:15 p.m. As soon as we took of, the woman in front of us and her two kids reclined as far as they could. I am 6’5” and Mr. FB is 6’1”, so that meant they reclined into our knees. Even in economy plus, my knees hit the back of the seat when it is reclined. I was behind the mother, and she kept trying to recline farther. She looked around, saw that she was hitting my knees, and then tried to recline some more! By the way, she was barely 5’ tall.

Otherwise, it was a pleasant flight. I am not a fan of Ted, but I will take two hours on Ted over two hours in F on US if it means not having to transfer from IAD to DCA.

Our flight landed at 8:09 p.m. and was at the gate less than 5 minutes later. (TPA truly is the world’s best airport!) We took the shuttles to baggage claim, and our bags came quickly. A 15-minute taxi ride later, we were home.

It was nice to be back in our house, and we have excellent memories of (and some very nice mementos from) our trip to Istanbul and Amsterdam.

Kaix

I was in Amsterdam for New Year's as well and it sure was quite the party! I didn't try to go to Dam until it was too late (11:50 pm; one of the police officers told us Dam was closed to more people), so we ended up in Rembrandt Square. There was a countdown there along with live music and a sea of people. Lots of fireworks and the fact that anyone can drink openly was a great change from the US... champaign bottles everywhere! Like you said, everything was dead on the 1st, but the Anne Frank House was actually open.

Flying Buccaneer

I can imagine that Rembrandtplein was also wild. We had considered going there instead, but de Dam was closer, and we had heard so much about what a party it was.

I wonder if all of the champagne bottles are gone yet. The electronic signs that were up on streets leading into de Dam on December 31 warned that fireworks and glass were prohibited in the square, but we saw both. But no one got hurt, as far as we know!

Kiwi Flyer

Thanks for the report Flying Buccaneer ^^

We stayed just off the Dam for NYE several years ago and it was great fun (until about 5am when I remembered I had a 9am train to catch).