We flew home from Europe on Thursday (August 20) on the morning nonstop from Amsterdam to SFO. It had taken us nearly an hour to get through the EES (European Entry-Exit System) in Amsterdam on our way to Barcelona a few months ago, and I’d read horror stories of people requiring hours to get through the system on their way back to the US, so we got up very early that morning and were at the KLM counter at 7am for a 9:50am departure.

Getting through passport control took 90 seconds. We were able to use the “E-Gates” and didn’t have to have photos or fingerprints taken nor speak to an immigration officer. We had plenty of time to kill in the KLM Lounge.

Which was good, because in our hurry, I’d used the Marriott app’s online checkout and hadn’t asked for a printed receipt – and I was unpleasantly surprised to see a 95 Euro mystery charge for a “package” on the receipt the hotel emailed me! I used the app to send a complaint to the hotel, and an hour later, received an apology and a corrected bill.

The flight was uneventful. To stay awake, I spent a good bit of time looking at the map, which included Wikipedia articles about places near our route of flight. I now know more about Lafleche, Saskatchewan, than I really need to know, even for trivia.

We landed at SFO about noon and were in a Hertz car on our way home about an hour later.

Two days later, we returned the car to Hertz at SFO and hopped on an Air Canada flight to Montreal. We had a tight connection there to another Air Canada flight to St. John’s, Newfoundland for our next adventure. We landed a few minutes late, were the first people off the plane, raced though Canada Immigration and Customs, and zipped back to the same gate…where we boarded the same airplane we’d flown in on, just sitting on the other side of the aisle. On the bright side, that was the most walking we did that day!

We finally got to St. John’s around 1am Newfoundland time; it was nearly 2am when we got to our hotel.

Newfoundland Daylight Time (UTC-2:30) is exactly half-way between Western European Summer Time (UTC+2) and Pacific Daylight Time (UTC-7), so I think our recovery from jet lag from the previous trip has gotten us set for this trip. :-)

We are going to be on a National Geographic/Lindblad cruise around Newfoundland starting Monday afternoon. It should be fun!

Today, we took the train to Utrecht for 10 Tastes of Utrecht: Food Tour with Full Lunch and 2 Drinks. Our guide, Joeri, contacted me this morning to offer to meet us at Utrecht Centraal station, but we said we’d be happy walking to the “official” meeting point, Dom Tower.

He was waiting for us, and we spent the next three hours learning about the city and enjoying some delicious foods. Our first stop, of course, was the interior of Dom Tower.

And then the food tour began!

We’d had a great time with Joeri, and I highly recommend the tour. Skip breakfast. Come prepared to learn and to enjoy interesting conversations.

Joeri had suggested we take a walk along the Singel canal after the tour; a long walk seemed like a great idea, and off we went!

After our walk, we stopped in the Hoog Catherijne shopping center to rest up before walking over to the Utrecht Centraal station for our trip back to the hotel.

Our tour was a great way to end our stopover in the Netherlands; we fly home tomorrow morning. I hope to have nothing interesting to write about.