PDX - Reykjavik - Amsterdam Travel Day!

What a monster travel day!

Kym & Larry picked us up at Jan's home and drove us to the airport.  A treat to be regaled with stories from the very experienced European travel nomads!

The adventure started with some excitement at the IcelandAir check-in.  They told us we needed one more form from Iceland, which we could fill-out on-line to obtain a bar code.  Are you kidding me?  So there we are in the middle of the gate area on our phones.

Finally .. SUCCESS!   Bar codes in hand, we line-up for the ticket agent.  Once there, she asks for our end destination, we said "Amsterdam" and she gets a panic look on her face and says .. "Americans aren't allowed in The Netherlands!".   We explain that we're only passing through to get on a river cruise boat in the harbor and that we've already filled out a declarations form.  We show her, she takes it to her supervisor and comes back and says we're .. good.   So .. after presenting her with Iceland bar code, Netherlands declaration form, vaccination card, negative covid test report, and passport, we finally can get our suitcases checked and told to proceed to our gate.   Whew! 

If you saw my Instagram post you saw what I drank a few minutes later, a needed Deschutes Brewery beer!

we're underway !

Icelandic ..  anyone ?

Jan and I settled down for this 7-hour flight with our books.  Ruth Ann & David had sent me this book .. 

it's fascinating !!

on to Reykjavik !

It was dark when we arrived.   Short 1-1/2 hr layover, hopped on another IcelandAir plane and 3-hr flight to Amsterdam.   Had to wait an hour for luggage .. uggh.

Ama driver with Mercedes van (nice!) drove us to our ship!!!  Finally, after over 16-hours of wearing a mask!

Our cabin was a welcome respite :

sat on the balcony chairs and breathed in fresh air!!

Here's Jan starting to put stuff away:

view from our room :

view from the sun deck:

here's looking up at the bridge, captain's station

see all of his rubber duckies?  and my reflection?

it was a beautiful day in Amsterdam!  but it was 7am in the morning for us! after starting at 3:30pm the day before .. feeling a bit groggy ..

We met at 6pm for staff introductions.  Captain is from Hungary, rest are from .. Romania, Germany, Bulgaria, Indonesia, and Serbia.

The ship 'set sail' while dinner was served at 7pm.  Here's a look at our table and the ship going pretty fast, travelling through the night to get to Dusseldorf. 

Time for a good 12-hour sleeeeeeep!!!

More tomorrow.  :)