Man, I had hoped to just fill this page up with juicy stories and lots of photos, but the truth of the matter is that we didn\’t get into Amsterdam proper like we had \”planned\”. A coworker and I traveled through Amsterdam to visit a customer site near Antwerp, and had \”planned\” on getting out of the customer site early on Friday, take the train to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, ditch our bags, and head into town. Antwerp had different ideas. We didn\’t leave the office until 16:45, and there were no taxis to be had at all in the city of Antwerp. The receptionist tried in vain to contact three different taxi companies, all to no avail. She finally got a company to commit to a taxi \”in an hour\”, though that cab never came. Around 18:30 we started to panic a bit – it was cold and raining, and the train station was like 5km away – much too far to walk. The buses didn\’t seem to have a scheduled run until the following Monday (wrong stop, I guess), and we were out of options. We called one of our customer engineers and begged for a ride to Berchem station, getting there in time for the 19:26 train to Schiphol, which pulled in at about 21:30. Cold, exhausted and hungry, we checked in and immediately met for dinner. We made plans for breakfast at 08:15 the following morning and said goodnight.
07:30 I arise and start getting ready for breakfast. The phone rings. Apostolos has a sore throat (no doubt from standing in the cold rain waiting for that taxi), so begs out of the trip to Amsterdam Central. I feel like crap anyway, so I pass on the trip as well, opting to check out the shops at the airport. My sister had requested a label pin rather than Belgian chocolates. I found one as we were leaving, but not on the initial reconnaissance trip. I went back to the hotel and stayed comfortable until checking out at noon.
I have promised myself that if I ever own a hotel (or B&B which is a more likely scenario – even as unlikely a possibility as that might be), there will be free access to the internet, either wired or wireless. The Hilton pissed me off. Here I was paying €135 for the room (a very nice room, by the way, with one glaring exception[1]), and they wanted another €6.95/hour (or €20.00/day) to plug my computer into the rest of the world. Sheesh. Buy a few routers, buy a few wireless access points, and since you\’re hooked up anyway for the reservations systems and such, give away internet access. Just give it away. Happier customers. Isn\’t that what they\’re supposed to be striving for? I know most of their customers don\’t care about another $8 or so, but some of us live in the real world, and only very occasionally get to stay at the Hilton (my last time was 1972, returning home from the Navy in Denver for Christmas).
[1] The only fault I could find with the room is that the shower couldn\’t maintain the proper, set temperature. I lived, but I certainly prefer the shower at a €135 Hilton hotel room to be at least as clever as the shower I have at home. I don\’t think that\’s unreasonable, do you?
