We woke up so late today at 10:55 am that we didn't have time to have breakfast at a cafe so just had coffee in our room, packed our bags and checked out around 11:45 am. Our alarm for 8:30 am did ring but we were so tired from all the walking of the past two days that we just slept through it!
We took a taxi to Paris' Gard du Nord train station and bought three croissants of different varieties with orange juice for having during our train ride. Our train to Amsterdam was ten minutes late and left the station at 12:35 pm instead of 12:25 pm. During the train ride, we had our packed brunch and just talked and researched our future travel plans on our iPad.
As promised yesterday, here are some of our impressions of the French culture and Parisians. The people are extremely stylish but at the same time very practical. You rarely see someone who is not smartly dressed but at the same time they never compromise on comfort and are always dressed according to weather. In addition, we never saw any women wearing uncomfortable heels. Another thing that we noticed was that smoking is quite prevalent and both men and women smoke frequently. The food is always fresh and people do grocery shopping twice a day for each meal. We saw many Parisians walking home with their lunch/dinner baguettes. The people love to eat but never over eat. The food is high quality and very rich but we didn't see a single Parisian who was overweight. In fact, they all have slender builds. Another thing that we observed was the culture of walking and taking public transit, something that you see in New York City too. There is this misperception that Parisians are rude but we found that they are just to the point (again, just like New Yorkers) but never rude. If you ask anyone for directions, they always help out. The French are also very particular about how they eat and their utensils are just perfect. For instance, they have a special spoon for jam bottles that has a much longer handle with a smaller head. They are also very no-nonsense and if you ask a waiter for more water while he's on his way to serve someone, he won't say "oh let me come back" (like North America) but will somehow make room in his hands to take away your empty bottle and replace it quickly. Another difference from North America is how the children are treated as young adults and not overly supervised or protected. For instance, you can see a 4 year old child crossing the road without holding an adult's hand. In short, it's a culture of economy and style as opposed to the North American culture of excess and comfort. We also saw many Muslims, mostly Algerians. The sad thing is that a big percentage of them are either beggars or pick pockets and very few seem to have assimilated into the French society on an equal footing.
We reached Amsterdam's Schiphol station after three hours at 3:35 pm and checked in our suitcases with KLM airlines. We had completed the online check-in last night before going to bed and had the boarding passes on our phones so the whole process took a few minutes and by 4 pm, we had decided to make a quick trip to Amsterdam's city center since there were still 5 hours left to our flight to Lisbon. We bought the return train tickets from the Schiphol Airport station to the Amsterdam Centraal station and freshened up to get ready for our mini trip.
We got the train to Amsterdam Centraal station at 5:05 pm and reached the city center by 5:20 pm. We walked on the busy Damrak Street that goes all the way to the famous Dam Square. We strolled around the square for a little while and took some pictures. There were people gathering at the square for a royal ceremony where the recently crowned King of Holland was to preside and it was to start at 8 pm. If we had time, we might have stayed for the ceremony but we decided to walk some more down another inner street for some more people watching and window shopping. We realized that we won't have enough time in Lisbon to have dinner so we decided to have the Indonesian Rijsttafel (Rice Table) that we had tried on our last year's stay of Amsterdam. This time we had a toned down version with "only" 13 types of small-portion dishes to go with rice. It was not as good as the one we had last year but it was pretty decent. We finished off with some green tea and Samia posted a picture on Facebook using the restaurant's free WiFi.
After our dinner, we walked back to Amsterdam Centraal station and had to wait only a few minutes before getting a train to Schiphol. We were at the airport at around 7:30 pm. Our flight was at 8:55 pm and being a flight within the European Union area, the boarding cutoff was till 10 minutes before the takeoff time. So we walked around the airport for some more window shopping. We headed for the gate around 7:55 pm and passed through security and were at our gate around 8:35 pm. The boarding hadn't started since the arriving aircraft was late and subsequently our flight was also late. We stood in line and boarded the aircraft around 8:50 pm. The flight had to wait another 20 minutes to get a spot on the runway for take off. The flight landed almost half an hour late in Lisbon, at around 12:20 am. We slept a little on the flight and then had a delicious zucchini and ricotta cheese ciabatta bread sandwich for dinner followed by a small chocolate cinnamon cake for dessert.
After getting our suitcases at the airport, we took a taxi to our hotel which is just a few kilometers away from the airport and will be going to bed now. We thought we didn't have to walk too much today but we still ended up walking over 6 km. We have to wake up early to catch our flight to Berlin. We've already checked-in and have the boarding passes on our phones so hopefully it should all go smoothly.
Good night and take care!
We took a taxi to Paris' Gard du Nord train station and bought three croissants of different varieties with orange juice for having during our train ride. Our train to Amsterdam was ten minutes late and left the station at 12:35 pm instead of 12:25 pm. During the train ride, we had our packed brunch and just talked and researched our future travel plans on our iPad.
As promised yesterday, here are some of our impressions of the French culture and Parisians. The people are extremely stylish but at the same time very practical. You rarely see someone who is not smartly dressed but at the same time they never compromise on comfort and are always dressed according to weather. In addition, we never saw any women wearing uncomfortable heels. Another thing that we noticed was that smoking is quite prevalent and both men and women smoke frequently. The food is always fresh and people do grocery shopping twice a day for each meal. We saw many Parisians walking home with their lunch/dinner baguettes. The people love to eat but never over eat. The food is high quality and very rich but we didn't see a single Parisian who was overweight. In fact, they all have slender builds. Another thing that we observed was the culture of walking and taking public transit, something that you see in New York City too. There is this misperception that Parisians are rude but we found that they are just to the point (again, just like New Yorkers) but never rude. If you ask anyone for directions, they always help out. The French are also very particular about how they eat and their utensils are just perfect. For instance, they have a special spoon for jam bottles that has a much longer handle with a smaller head. They are also very no-nonsense and if you ask a waiter for more water while he's on his way to serve someone, he won't say "oh let me come back" (like North America) but will somehow make room in his hands to take away your empty bottle and replace it quickly. Another difference from North America is how the children are treated as young adults and not overly supervised or protected. For instance, you can see a 4 year old child crossing the road without holding an adult's hand. In short, it's a culture of economy and style as opposed to the North American culture of excess and comfort. We also saw many Muslims, mostly Algerians. The sad thing is that a big percentage of them are either beggars or pick pockets and very few seem to have assimilated into the French society on an equal footing.
We reached Amsterdam's Schiphol station after three hours at 3:35 pm and checked in our suitcases with KLM airlines. We had completed the online check-in last night before going to bed and had the boarding passes on our phones so the whole process took a few minutes and by 4 pm, we had decided to make a quick trip to Amsterdam's city center since there were still 5 hours left to our flight to Lisbon. We bought the return train tickets from the Schiphol Airport station to the Amsterdam Centraal station and freshened up to get ready for our mini trip.
We got the train to Amsterdam Centraal station at 5:05 pm and reached the city center by 5:20 pm. We walked on the busy Damrak Street that goes all the way to the famous Dam Square. We strolled around the square for a little while and took some pictures. There were people gathering at the square for a royal ceremony where the recently crowned King of Holland was to preside and it was to start at 8 pm. If we had time, we might have stayed for the ceremony but we decided to walk some more down another inner street for some more people watching and window shopping. We realized that we won't have enough time in Lisbon to have dinner so we decided to have the Indonesian Rijsttafel (Rice Table) that we had tried on our last year's stay of Amsterdam. This time we had a toned down version with "only" 13 types of small-portion dishes to go with rice. It was not as good as the one we had last year but it was pretty decent. We finished off with some green tea and Samia posted a picture on Facebook using the restaurant's free WiFi.
After our dinner, we walked back to Amsterdam Centraal station and had to wait only a few minutes before getting a train to Schiphol. We were at the airport at around 7:30 pm. Our flight was at 8:55 pm and being a flight within the European Union area, the boarding cutoff was till 10 minutes before the takeoff time. So we walked around the airport for some more window shopping. We headed for the gate around 7:55 pm and passed through security and were at our gate around 8:35 pm. The boarding hadn't started since the arriving aircraft was late and subsequently our flight was also late. We stood in line and boarded the aircraft around 8:50 pm. The flight had to wait another 20 minutes to get a spot on the runway for take off. The flight landed almost half an hour late in Lisbon, at around 12:20 am. We slept a little on the flight and then had a delicious zucchini and ricotta cheese ciabatta bread sandwich for dinner followed by a small chocolate cinnamon cake for dessert.
After getting our suitcases at the airport, we took a taxi to our hotel which is just a few kilometers away from the airport and will be going to bed now. We thought we didn't have to walk too much today but we still ended up walking over 6 km. We have to wake up early to catch our flight to Berlin. We've already checked-in and have the boarding passes on our phones so hopefully it should all go smoothly.
Good night and take care!
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