Thursday, August 15

Even though Janie and Dan arrived in Amsterdam yesterday, today they get to come to Soest. Using emails we arrange to pick them up at Hotel Krasnapolsky, on the Dam at noon. We make a stop at the health food store for almond butter, cereal, and l-glutamine. Then we put the hotel address in the Tom-Tom and take off down the A-1 toward Amsterdam. We get within 3 kms of the hotel and run into heavy traffic. Well, we are in Amsterdam and its raining. Fifteen minutes after noon we pull up to the front door of the hotel and retrieve our guests.

Louise (Tom-Tom voice) tells us there is heavy traffic and takes us out of town a very different way but we keep moving and  eventually we're on the A-1 headed for Soest. During the ride, Jaanie and Dan tell us their hotel story. Once they gave up on us picking them up last night (about 9:00), Dan uses his Kindle Fire to look for a hotel on hotwire.com. They find a discount, 3-star hotel (NH City Centre) nearby for a reasonable price. Using a taxi that took them on what seemed to be a roundabout tour of the city, they arrive and are told there are no rooms, no matter what hotwire.com says. But, they find them a room at the Krasnapolsky (part of the same chain and 5-star) and give them a free ride over to it. The price is the same, and Janie and Dan end up in a luxury room with a balcony overlooking the Dam. This is called "making a silk purse out of a sow's ear" or "making lemonade out of a lemon". They did ok, given the circumstances.

After stopping at our special hamburger place on the road to Hillversum (can't remember the name) and being turned away because of lack of tables (didn't want to sit outside in the rain and the cool) we end up at de Smickel. Janie had a huge tuna salad and the rest of us had pancakes with various savory toppings and beer. Linda tried one with lemon in it. Different. I think she liked it.

Back at the house, we sit around and natter for most of the afternoon. The skies clear and we eat dinner outside. More nattering and then to bed. Everyone was very tired.