Hello, Amsterdam

 

We arrived in Amsterdam!

The flight was good, but none of us slept. Not really, anyway. There were a few minutes here and there when I think we may have dozed off, but for the most part, we were wide awake for the entire flight.

By the time we landed, we were exhausted.

After collecting our luggage, we discovered that getting to the Uber pick-up point was going to be a bit of an adventure in itself. We walked what felt like a mile to the luggage carousel, collected our bags, and then walked another mile with all of our luggage to find our ride.

By the time we arrived at our hotel, I was more than ready to sit down.

We are staying at the Leonardo Eden, right in Amsterdam's canal district, and after checking in we decided that the best thing we could do was sleep for three hours. The plan was to get up, find something to eat, and hopefully reset ourselves enough to make it through the evening.

Three hours later, I woke up feeling like the dog's breakfast. I could definitely feel the jet lag starting to settle in.

Fortunately, we didn't have to go far to find a little bit of Amsterdam.

Just behind our hotel is Rembrandtplein, or Rembrandt Square, one of the city's better-known squares. It is named after the Dutch artist Rembrandt, whose connection to Amsterdam is everywhere in the city. The square has restaurants, cafés, bars and terraces surrounding it, and in the middle is a statue of Rembrandt himself. In the evening, it becomes a lively gathering place, with both locals and tourists out enjoying dinner and the evening.

And lively it was.

There were people everywhere, and after our long day, it was actually nice to be out in the middle of it all. We found a little pub where we could grab a quick dinner and get our bearings, then spent some time wandering around the square and along the canals.

Amsterdam at night was already giving us a pretty good first impression. The canals were busy with boats going up and down, people were sitting outside enjoying the evening, and there was just enough going on to remind us that we had finally arrived.

We didn't stay out too long. We were still exhausted, and our beds were calling.

Back at the hotel, however, we had one more problem to deal with.

Son #1's phone.

We had been working on getting it working while we were at the airport, to no avail, and now we were back at it. It was a very frustrating process, and honestly, it would have been so much worse if ChatGPT hadn't been able to walk us through what to try.

The fix failed again.

Eventually, we figured out what the problem was. I didn't have enough storage space on my computer for the update we needed to do. Who knew that would be the thing standing between us and a working phone?

So, overnight, we cleared some space and tried again in the morning.

After a rather tense morning and a couple of attempts, we finally got it working!

What a relief.

I have to admit, I wouldn't have known what to do without ChatGPT. And I'm especially thankful that I decided at the last minute to bring my laptop along. That little decision may have saved the day.

The phone is working, we're all still standing, and now we can finally concentrate on the fun part.

We’re in Amsterdam and our adventure can begin!