Friday, March 14, 2008

Grace Abounds

We, Joanne and her Traveling Curmudgeon, flew into Amsterdam. With Joanne along I'd made a reservation at a bed no breakfast place within walking distance of the Central Station. Fortunately it wasn't raining as we had about a fifteen minute walk. We misread the directions and were standing on a street corner trying to puzzle it out when angel number one stopped and asked if we needed help. She soon had as on our way and we found it with no more trouble.
When we arrived there was a note in the window for me to call the owner. That revealed two problems. First, I thought I had called her from the station. The pay phone was 100% Dutch but in spite of that I thought I had left her a message. Who knows what I had really done though I know it cost 2 Euros. Second, we had not activated our cell phones, so there we stood on a side street with no way to call. Out of the next door came a man, who, when he saw us standing forlornly with our bags said we must call Maria. We explained we had no phone, he popped back into his apartment, returned with a cell phone and called Maria for us...angel number two. Soon Hans showed up to let us in.
Hans had directed us to a good grocery store and because we have a kitchen we went. Thinking there would likely be an ATM in the store we entered and stood inside the door looking about . Angel number three asked if she could help us and pointed us to an ATM acrros the room. We hadn't been in Amsterdam three hours and we'd been visited by three angels.
I'm so jet lagged I think I could sleep standing up! Once when I was here with family we made the mistake of taking a canal ride the first day....all six of us slept through it.
Oh, yes, spell check is in Dutch and many of you know my spelling ablities.

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