Our flight to Amsterdam was good. We picked up our luggage and then had to figure out how to get to the train station. Once we got that figured out, we caught the first available train which again, was a matter of getting our luggage on quickly. This train was not easy because all seats were either up some stairs or down some stairs. And there was no place that we saw where you could store the luggage. Finally someone told us that they could be placed between the seats. But then, all too quickly we were at our next stop so then we had to lug all our stuff back up the stairs and off the train. Since train tracks were being repaired in this section of our route, we had to get on a bus for a while. That was a long walk going from the train station to where the buses were parked with all our luggage.
When we got off of the bus, we were dismayed to see that the train tracks were a slight distance away bur thankfully there were elevators where we could take our luggage up and then cross over the tracks on a bridge. This time, when we caught the train, we didn't even bother with dealing with the up or down stairs on the train. We just stayed in the small section by the door. The trains were very crowded now and we ended up having to stand after our next stop, but that was preferable to us than going up or down stairs to find seats.
Our train stops were Amsterdam, Utrecht, Geldermalsen (which is where we caught the bus), then Geldermalsen to Hertogenbosch and then final stop in Eindhoven. Doesn;t seem bad and it wasn't really. The hard part was lifting our luggage up to and off off the trains.
Once we got to Eindhoven, we went out to where the taxis were to get a taxi to our hotel. The taxi driver in the first car at first started to put our luggage in the trunk of her taxi but when we told her we were going to the Crown Inn Hotel, she said that it was only a 5 minute walk away and she couldn't see us paying for a taxi when we could just walk there. We thanked her for being so kind to let us know that, but then the taxi driver behind her started arguing with her - yelling at her why she didn't just take us and telling us that it WASN'T just a 5 minute walk,. We told him that we appreciated the first taxi driver's honesty, gave her a few euros for saving us from LOTS of euros and then left them. It WAS just a short walk to the hotel and since the weather was so nice, it was definitely worth walking.
We checked in and first thing I did was call Hans to let him know we had arrived. We agreed to meet in one hour. We met him an hour later down in front of the hotel and we sat at one of the outdoor tables and had a drink while we got to know each other a little bit. It was so easy talking with him and we really enjoyed his company.
After a while, we walked around the pedestrian area, saw a nice church, and he took us to a marijuana shop because we had said we wanted to see one. That was so strange - to see a place where they had menus with all the different kinds of marijuana combinations that you could order!!
Then we got in his car and drove to the restaurant we were going to eat at that evening, where we had an absolutely delicious meal in an old warehouse that had been converted into an interesting restaurant. This is what it looked like across the road from the restaurant - it was an interesting area.
After dinner, Hans drove us around the city along the trail of lights that had something to do with Holland's liberation from Germany. The trail ended at this lake where there were all these beautiful lit scenes. Here is one of them.
Then Hans drove us back to the area of our hotel and walked with us to the front of the hotel. We said goodbye to him there and as he left, we felt it was definitely worth taking the time to meet with him. We had such a good time with him.
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