The overcast was so low you couldn't see Amsterdam until we were just about on the runway.

After all that, we were only running 15 minutes late. Then another kilometer or so to baggage claim ( Schipol is also a very big airport.)

The baggage delivery system broke down, and it took half an hour to get our bags. We amused ourselves reading the labels which either fall off bags and stick to the carousel or get put there on purpose, going round and round advertising all kinds of things! With our bags, we found the bus driver and were pretty quickly on our street in Amsterdam, a few blocks from the city center. It's raining. Again, a day which could have gone off course but didn't but and we arrived only about an hour later than expected.
Amsterdam is a city some of us know and are happy to see again. While it adds spice to our lives to be dealing in Czech crowns and Hungarian florins without speaking a word of either language - it will be nice, as we make our dash across the Benelux region, to be in Euros and English.Perhaps this is more than you need to know about the glamorous business of touring, but we're telling you anyway, and we know that all you Frankfurt Airport veterans will have a laugh.
Tomorrow evening we sing Orlando in the Concertgebouw. The next day is Luxembourg (by bus), where apparently there has just been a snowfall which has broken all historical records.

February: The Goulash Chronicles

While we're sitting in the Budapest airport, en route to Amsterdam via Frankfurt, we thought Matt should wrap up his Goulash Chronicles before we leave the goulash part of the world and before he leaves to go home on Thursday, and now that he's finished reading Julie/Julia.
This is Slovakian goulash, in Bratislava, which he has pronounced the best! It is spicy with vegetables, and is more stew like than others.