St. Simons Island 2023 - Day 1: Georgia, via Florida

We got the band back together from Spring Break 2022, except that Karyn couldn't make it. She's here in spirit, though. This year, we're destined for St. Simons, Georgia.

Shannon came to our house at the crack of dawn, and then we were all out the door at 7 AM to go pick up Christie. We made great time to the Philadelphia airport, because almost nobody else is on the turnpike that early on a Saturday.

The flight to Jacksonville is not even 2 hours, once the plane gets off the ground. It was notable for three small reasons:

1. The captain announced something like "the fancy gadgetry at the front says we’ll be landing on time”.
2. One flight attendant announced that it was the other’s birthday, and led the whole plane in singing happy birthday.
3. Upon landing, we couldn’t get to the jetway because a Southwest luggage cart had lost a wheel and was blocking the way.

Other than that, the flight was fine. And JAX seemed fine. Getting the rental car took about an hour, however. I don't know if this is typical of JAX car rental; if it is, note to future self: fly into Savannah, next time.

It wasn't all bad news, though; they had a surfeit of minivans, and were trying to convince everyone to upgrade. I was happy to oblige, so we ride in style this week, in what at least one person has called "the Cadillac of minivans":

Wanting to minimize our time in the state of Florida as much as possible, we waited until we crossed the border into Georgia to stop for a late lunch, at a above-average Mexican restaurant, just off I-95.

It's just over an hour from JAX to St. Simons Island, and with the delays/eating it was some time around 4 PM when we arrived at the Airbnb.

After a brief, self-guided walkthrough and some unloading/unpacking, we walked over to the beach to investigate the conditions.

When we booked this trip back in early January, we expected the weather to be like Spring, here. Perhaps... mid 70s Fahrenheit. Instead, they've been experiencing record-setting warm temperatures; it was in the mid 80s today, and is expected to remain so for the next week or so.

The beach had hundreds of patrons today, even as the sun was about to set and the air was cooling down. The water temp hasn't caught up to the air, though, and the internet suggests it's 62F. We saw maybe 20 people in the water, total, as we walked almost 2 miles up the beach.

After about an hour of wandering, we left the beach via the access at East Beach Station, which is now a WWII museum.

As the sun was going down, we walked back towards... downtown, I suppose one might generously label it. Along the way, we took a shortcut through the drive-through liquor store, and then stopped at Barrier Island Brewing for some food and drinks.

After our light dinner (lunch was at 2:30, after all), we walked the rest of the way to downtown, returned to the house, and then made a quick trip to the grocery store (Winn-Dixie) for some breakfast and such. 

The next few days might include some active leisure, such as kayaking or bicycle renting. Or maybe just lounging on the beach, reading. It wasn't necessarily intended to be a beach vacation, but who are we to argue with climate change?

Amsterdam 2023 - Day 6: Airports are fun

Munroe and Jamie checked out early and headed for the street market. I left the hotel just after 10 and went to meet them by the metro station.

We took the metro to Amsterdam Zuid (south station), then took the intercity train to Schiphol airport. The entire trip was maybe 30 minutes, and we had good timing with trains.

During this trip, I received two messages from Icelandair: the first confirming my itinerary change to British Airways flights connecting through London Heathrow, and the second stating "Your Icelandair flight is cancelled".

As we were already at the airport by the time I saw them, I decided to go to the original gate anyway, to discover if any additional information was available. Munroe and Jamie headed to a different terminal, as they were flying a different airline.

The 1 PM flight had been rescheduled to something like 6 or 6:30 PM, at which point I would've ended up spending the night at the Keflavík airport, I think. Instead, Icelandair had helpfully rebooked me through Heathrow just after 4 PM, getting me back to Newark about 4 hours later than planned.

This also meant I had to go to a different terminal, go through passport control because I was now leaving the Schengen Area in the Netherlands instead of in Iceland, and somehow figure out how to get new boarding passes without going outside security to the BA check-in counter.

I went to the gate, but it was so early that it was empty. The "departing flights" board had a column labeled "help", which indicated T5 (transfer desk 5) for help with this flight. I hiked over to T5, getting stopped for a random security interview along the way, only to discover it was also deserted. The hand-written sign said something about T6, but when I went over there it was just for KLM and Delta; they suggested going back to the gate. It felt like I walked about 2 miles in that airport.

Eventually, I found a few random BA agents at a different gate and convinced them to print me some boarding passes.

With a few more hours to kill, I found a spot to wait and swap stories with some fellow (delayed) passengers. A random Dutch woman on her way to London for holiday was full of questions about the US, was curious what I thought about Amsterdam, Aruba, other European cities, etc., and educated me about Dutch winter activities like the Elfstedentocht. She also confessed to not liking cheese or skating, which made her weird in Holland.

The flight to Heathrow was delayed about an hour, also, which was fine with me; I had been looking at a 2.5 hour layover anyway.

The 1-hour flight was uneventful, and landed at the same time that it departed, given the time change.

At Heathrow, I had to take a train to another terminal and go through security again.

 I had loosely planned to find a real restaurant and have dinner, during the lengthy layover, but the flight delay and intricacies of Heathrow conspired to leave me perhaps 45 minutes to spare. I enjoyed a £4.99 meal deal, instead.

It hadn't occurred to me that British Airways would also be feeding me, so second dinner was about 3 hours after the first. Then they provided a (hot) snack, 3 or 4 hours after that.

We landed in Newark just before 10 PM EST. As usual, the worst part of the entire trip was the disorganized shitshow that is US immigration at EWR. If there are any international visitors who have that as their first experience here, I'd be surprised if they ever come back.

Regardless, it was after midnight by the time I got home, but at least I wasn't sleeping in an airport in Iceland. 😉 

Amsterdam 2023 - Day 5: Grachtengordel, Heineken

 As was becoming habit by now, I did some work in the morning while waiting for the sun to thaw and businesses to open, then emerged to explore more of the city.

Today, though, I thought I'd bring the laptop and experience the digital nomad lifestyle.

After stopping at a bakery, I took the metro up to the Rokin area and cut through the Dam, looking for a cafe to enjoy a cappuccino and answer some email.

There's always a bit of sidewalk under renovation, no matter where one goes in this city. This is the first one I saw that was still open for traffic while the brick was being re-laid.

It was almost noon when I left the cafe and wandered west into the Grachtengordel.

I spent the next few hours roaming aimlessly back towards De Pijp, weaving back and forth over the bridges in the Canal Belt area.

It was another beautiful day (sunny and cold with a light breeze) as I searched for my favorite canal-bridge photo.

I had read that one of the tips for seeing Amsterdam is to walk on the shaded side of the canal, to take photos of the sunny side, but it was a bit chilly in the shade and the severe angle of the sun wasn't helping.

I was tempted by the houseboat museum, but I didn't see anyone onboard.

Around 1 PM, I stopped for lunch (kroketten on brown bread, and a beer) and a bit of light laptop work.

After lunch, I resumed meandering, now heading toward Rembrandt Square.

Now that is a clever name for a restaurant.

I don't know if this one is "clever", but it got my attention.

I should clarify: I didn't know I was heading toward Rembrandt Square, but it's where I found myself just before 2 PM. 

Lest anyone get the wrong idea, this was the first place in the city I saw these particular signs, for the record.

By that point, the conference was over, and Munroe was finally getting to see the Albert Cuyp street market, which was only about 1/2 a mile south of where I happened to be, so I aimed vaguely in that direction.

Here, we see the fate of unwanted bicycles. This article quotes an estimate that 100 people and 35 cars end up in the canals each year, but nobody can agree on how many bikes are drowned.

First, though, I got thirsty and had to stop for some hydration. While I was sitting at the bar, I figured I might as well try another sample of the digital nomad life. See if you can spot the cat.

Having finished my refreshment, I caught up with Munroe; we returned the hotel for a few hours of work.

One of the only remaining (very) touristy things I wanted to do was to hit the Heineken Experience, conveniently only about 1/2 a mile from the hotel. It was open until 7:30 PM, as I recall, and we were able to book tickets for the 5:45 PM time slot without any trouble.

We collected our third adventurer for the evening and ventured forth for the night. It was just starting to rain lightly as we got to the Heineken Experience (henceforth "HE").

The Experience commenced with a short guided tour and a history lesson.

The HE is the site of the original brewery, before they moved it out of Amsterdam to further expand the brewery. They kept all of the kettles/tuns/tanks, which are perfect as bright-and-shiny crowd-pleasers. 

After that, it got a bit weird. There was a sort of... "media experience", in which you see how the process goes from the perspective of the beer itself.

We also had the option to customize a personal bottle, for a small fee. We declined.

Munroe and I did try the DIY karaoke video, which was a virtual bicycle ride around the city.

I don't speak any Dutch, but I put all of the captions from the video into Google Translate:

When spring comes I will send you

Tulips from Amsterdam

When spring comes I will pick for you

Tulips from Amsterdam

When I come back I'll bring you

Tulips from Amsterdam

[One] thousand yellow, [one] thousand red

Wish you the very best

What my mouth can't say,

Say tulips from amsterdam

The last part of the HE was to enjoy two small beers at the end, in a club-like setting, complete with loud music, flashing lights, and sticky floors.

On our way out, we visited the merch store, naturally.

It was almost 7:30 PM when we left the HE, without really having a plan for dinner. In hindsight, that was a bit of a mistake, because it was Friday night and everywhere we tried was 100% booked.

We wandered the streets of De Pijp for almost an hour, looking at menus, making inquiries, and debating options. Eventually, we settled on a Turkish/Mediterranean restaurant where we could sit at 8:30 PM.

It was after 9 by the time we got our entrees, but it was worth the wait.

After dinner, we returned the hotel briefly, then Munroe and I went back out, took the metro to Central Station, and wandered down towards the... party area.

We meandered around the canals for a bit, but it was crowded and somewhat windy so we didn't dwell for too long.

Instead, we found some quiet streets and strolled along the canals, vaguely headed back towards the Dam / Rokin metro station. The city is truly beautiful at night.

It was probably around 11:30 PM when we got back to the hotel. We tidied up a bit and organized our bags for the morning.

Tomorrow, we'll check out some time around 10 AM, hop the metro to Amsterdam Zuid, then take the intercity train out to Schiphol airport. Our flights are all around 1 PM. I did receive an email (this morning) from Icelandair about some impending weather in Reykjavik, offering to change flights to a day earlier/later (ominous foreshadowing).

Or, if you prefer the Icelandic version (which was above the English translation, in the message):

I'm not sure why my mail client decided to spellcheck it...?