Day 14

This morning was very stressful.  We were a little later leaving the apartment than we anticipated, so had to fast walk, with our suitcases, to the Termini, to catch the express train to the airport.  When we got to the Termini we had no idea where to catch the train.  Eventually, we found it, after asking about 3 people, but it was already packed.  We were starting to panic as no one wanted to let us on.  We ended up forcing our way on, with our bags and another 5 or 6 people, with their bags, pushed their way on after us.  It reminded mum of getting on the trains in Hong Kong during rush hour.  There was no room to move, especially with suitcases everywhere.  It was a 30 minute ride to the airport.  During the ride I dropped my hat but I couldn't bend down to pick it up, so an American lady picked it up for me.  She then struck up a conversation with mum for the rest of the ride.  She gave us a US $2 note, as a souvenir, as they are not that common in America.   After just making it onto the train to the airport, we then had to find out where to check our bags in.  That was another mission.  We found a lot of other airline check in places but not KLM.  We asked a man, who looked like he worked at the airport, and he gave us some vague instructions, so we asked someone else, who took us to where we needed to go, which was at the Air France check in area.

Once we finally got out of the airport, we accidently found the 'I Amsterdam' sign, which I was hoping to see, so had to take some photos of it.   We then tried to book a Bolt (European Uber), but couldn't get hold of one.  Eventually, we managed to get a Bolt who drove us to our hotel, Hampton by Hilton Schiphol.   When we got booked in we tried taking the elevator to the first floor, but it kept opening on the ground floor. Apparently, the door wasn't shutting properly. Some random guy helped us out.  We spent the rest of the day in our room.

As it would take a while to get to the nearest eatery, we decided to have dinner at the hotel.  We ordered the kids menu, nachos and 10 spicy chicken pieces, as they sounded a lot more delicious and were cheaper.   It was too big a meal for us to eat, so don't know how a child would be able to eat it all.  We then went back to our room to try and catch up on some blogs.