1 October 2018

A Baltic Diversion

1 October 2018

Sep/October. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
30	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30

Monday 1 October 2018--I like maps. (The wallpapers for the last seven journals are a clue.) As already mentioned, the shape of my Baltic diversion had its genesis in poking around maps of the region. When I'm searching for lodgings on various booking websites, I like to use the map view to see what's where. While I was looking for something reasonably priced in Amsterdam, my wandering eye landed on a string of towns to the north. I ended up booking three nights in a small hotel in Volendam. The area looks interesting, and I'm up for something new. I'll take a night in the city at the end of the trip.

My flight lands at Schiphol at 12:30. I take the train into Amsterdam's central station, where I intend to catch the bus onward to Volendam. There's a complication--the bus, I know from research, is cash-free, accepting only PIN- activated cards. My credit card will not work, and I've forgotten to notify the bank that issued my ATM card that I was traveling, so it won't work, either. Fortunately, my phone works. I have to kill a little time with a cup of coffee at the station--the bank opens at 8:00 at home, 2:00pm here. After a bit more phone fun than I would like, I get it sorted. Find the bus, and offer my card as I board. The driver tells me the card reader is down, and it's cash only today. Okay.

I'm in Volendam half an hour later. It's a five-minute walk to my hotel, on the front street overlooking the harbor. I check in, drop my bags, and head right out for a walk around--I know if I sit down in the room, I'll pass right out, and would likely wake up utterly discombobulated late in the evening. Stroll the seafront, looking into restaurants and souvenir shops and such, some closed for the season. Volendam is obviously a touristy little place, vaguely reminiscent of some of the Scottish towns around the Firth of Clyde that were once holiday destinations for working-class Glaswegians. Unlike those places, though, it appears still to have a beating heart, and I find it charming on the first of October, quiet but not dead. I'm sure I wouldn't like it in July.

I leave the waterfront and wander around the town. There are older and newer neighborhoods, but even the latter have a modicum of Dutch architectural charm. It feels like a very pleasant and livable place. Back on the front, I find dinner and a few beers. I'm nodding off, as I usually do on my first evening over, and as darkness falls, I allow myself to retire early. I'm in bed at 8:00.

I wake up, utterly discombobulated, at 3:30, and spend a couple of hours trying to get back to sleep. I think this is not going to be easy.

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