The Netherlands

Yep. My job sucks - NOT. Gotta go to The Netherlands to deliver a class (WOOHOO!).

So today we finally started doing some planning around our trip. We will fly out on Saturday morning, September 25th, flying Phoenix to DC to Amsterdam. I was (foolishly) thinking that we would get automatic upgrades to 1st class, like I do on the domestic flights, but not so. But I think we will be fine. We have our two seats together and hopefully we'll sleep on the flight like we did on the way to Paris.

We arrive in Amsterdam on Sunday morning and will take a train from Schiphol airport to Eindhoven. Looks like about a 2-hour trip and the train station is right there at the airport. Nice and easy!

We will be staying at the Eden Crown Hotel Eindhoven which is just down the street from the train station. Monday through Thursday I will deliver class and hopefully enjoy a bit of Eindhoven in the evening.

On Friday we will take the train up to Rotterdam and spend two nights at the Hilton Rotterdam Hotel. There is a walking tour highlighted in our tour book, so something we will most likely do.

From Rotterdam, we will travel by train up to Den Haag. We were able to snag reservations (for a great price) at a little family-owned boutique hotel called The Boulevard, situated right on the ocean. We'll stay in Den Haag for two nights and then make the 30-minute journey, by train, to Amsterdam.

We will wrap up our trip with a 3-night stay in Amsterdam at a little hotel called Hotel Freeland. I tend to be a creature of habit and fail to venture out of my comfort zone when traveling. But I'm trying to change that and challenge myself a bit when we travel and explore smaller hotels, different modes of travel, etc. So I'm really pleased with our hotel choices on this trip!!