Amsterdam

Finally the time has come for another cruise. After last year’s Baltic cruise, Kurt has been looking forward to another relaxing holiday exploring the world from the luxury of a floating hotel. This year Kathy found a cruise visiting three places Kurt has not yet visited: Gibraltar, Morocco and Portugal. The days leading up to the trip Kurt suffers from a fungal infection of his left ear, which causes some pain and leaves him with an ear that feels stuffed and deaf. Kathy gets a bad cold as well so neither of us is in the best of health as we head off to Europe.

We started by flying (business class gratefully) on a KLM non-stop from San Francisco to Amsterdam on Friday, June 23, 2017. Arriving on Saturday morning, we rented a car and drove to the Amsterdam Renaissance Hotel. We were able to immediately check-in and rested for a few hours. We walked a bit around the old center of the city and had dinner at the hotel. Kurt enjoys looking at the city through the eyes of his old photographer self. For Father’s Day, etc. Kathy bought Kurt a new (used) mirror-less digital camera and a couple of lenses and he really enjoys getting back into the swing of photography. He tries to find the old “eye” and see both images to record their visit as well as makes the effort to find a few images that can stand on their own, apart from recording the visit.