| Years ago when we took a trip from Chicago to | | | | Holland, and then looked at a canal boat. We |
| Rome, our airplane had a stopover in Amsterdam, | | | | carefully asked the tour director how long the |
| Holland. We found out the plane was going to be | | | | tour was. He said it was exactly one hour and not |
| in Amsterdam for about three hours. Fortunately, | | | | more, and not less. We decided if we were going |
| a friend of mine had told me that I should bring | | | | to be back in one hour, we were going to take |
| just a few dollars in local money that could be | | | | the trip. So we paid our fare, got onto the canal |
| used in Amsterdam. | | | | boat, and took this one-hour tour of downtown |
| When the plane landed, we immediately left the | | | | Amsterdam. This can be done by anybody who |
| airport and went and boarded a bus. We were | | | | wants to take a little adventurous trip in a strange |
| not familiar with the city and we did not speak | | | | city. |
| the language. When we boarded the bus I | | | | It was fascinating. We saw many of the unique |
| produced my Guilders, and we went to sit down. | | | | homes in the area, including Anne Frank's home. |
| There was an American couple behind us who | | | | We passed under many bridges and enjoyed the |
| pulled out a dollar bill and the driver wouldn't | | | | multilingual descriptions by the boat captain. At the |
| accept it. But this other couple said they thought | | | | end of one hour we were back in our dock. We |
| we looked like we knew where we were going so | | | | left the boat, went back to the our bus line, and |
| they followed us. So I pulled out some more | | | | caught a bus to return to the airport. The bus |
| guilders and paid for their bus fare. | | | | took us back to the airport in about 20 minutes. |
| Our strategy was this. We did not know anything | | | | The moral of the story is this. Even if you're only |
| about Amsterdam except that we were going to | | | | going to be in a strange city for a short time. you |
| spend some time looking. We thought we would | | | | should arrive with some of the local currency. |
| go on the bus and travel until almost half the time | | | | When we arrived at the airport. We saw many of |
| was used up and then board a return bus back to | | | | our fellow passengers standing around looking out |
| the airport. | | | | the window and waiting for the time to go so |
| The bus took us to downtown Amsterdam in | | | | they could we board the airplane. We did not see |
| about 15 minutes. So we quickly walked through a | | | | all of Amsterdam, but we certainly got a taste of |
| portion of the downtown section, stopped at a | | | | it in just three hours. |
| bank and got a little more money to be used in | | | | |