As I knew from my friends Jenny and Marty's experiences with the train to Chicago, it often runs late. Somehow, despite the fact that our train was in Ypsilanti when we got to the station at 6:30, the train was an hour and a half late. Not the most auspicious start to our travels.
At least we got some sleep on the train.
After some rest and some holiday-ing at Dave's parents' house (holiday posts come later), they took us to O'Hare for our 4:30 p.m. flight on the 22nd. The boys were really excited to fly, even more so when they saw that our plane had two stories!
We watched the first half of the Michigan-Air Force game thanks to YouTube TV while we waited for our flight. Hopefully we will catch the rest before they play on the 30th, but Wifi has been spotty since leaving the airports.
KLM was a great airline to fly. They pulled us out of the gate area for both flights to tell us to pre-board with the boys. We didn't think that would be anything we did now that Ethan is six, but it was nice to get bumped up. Dave sprung for the Economy Coach class, which gave us a little more room. Everyone had their own screen, though the boys used their tablets until we made them get some sleep. A few hours (plus those we skipped during the trans-Atlantic flight) we landed in Amsterdam!
The boys were really impressed with the airport and the train station in Amsterdam. The decorations and lights for Christmas were festive, and in general the size, hustle, and bustle made an impression. We figured out which train to take to the city center.
Amsterdam at 8:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning (December 23) was absolutely dead. The sun was barely up by the time we arrived downtown at 8:30- Dave said that Amsterdam is at about the 52nd parallel, which is pretty far north. The boys got to run around like banshees, and really enjoyed chasing the pigeons. (I tried to find a picture of Ben chasing pigeons during our 2011 trip to Italy, but I couldn't.) We found a few markets to walk around and got Dutch pancakes- yum!
They were looking a little wiped out at this point.
We had hoped to explore Amsterdam more, but it started raining. Nobody was in any kind of shape to sightsee in the rain at that point, so we headed back to the airport in the early afternoon. The flight to Munich was about two hours. We got our luggage and walked right out of the airport- customs was basically nonexistent. At least every day I'm thankful that the boys are such capable travelers. They have done a great job of walking on their own as well as carting their own luggage.Somehow our rental car was upgraded to an Audi. After Dave figured out how to get it started and how to turn off the heated steering wheel, we headed off on our drive to Riefensburg to meet Lynne, Tyler, and their families for the holiday. I stayed awake to navigate for Dave for 2.5 hours while the boys zonked out in the back.
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