Just friends we haven't met yet.

We had a great flight will KLM to Amsterdam. Last time I flew (back from Hong Kong after China) I was seated next to a lovely older Jewish gentleman. I believe that at the time, I was rather famished and was rather envious when the flight attendant brought out a big personalised tray of noms well before the rest of the meal service had even started.

It looked good and when the standard fare finally made its way into my tray (yes airline food can be pretty decent at times but this time I'd truly licked out with some rather unappetising chicken and rice thing), I was convinced that surely a special meal order was the way to go.

So when I did the online check-in thing for this flight, I looked through the special meal options and selected Kosher for Sequoia and I. 

We weren't disappointed. Way before they brought the trolley down the aisle, Sequoia and I were presented with our tasty meals - more than well wrapped on massive trays. Salmon was the main and it was delicious. We'll probably go between vego and Kosher on flights from now on.

The flight was long but when I asked the hostess for a bourbon and coke, she pored me a rather generous whiskey and coke and handed me the rest of the can. I'm glad she did, as it was very strong and I was almost at the end of the can before it wasn't burning on its way down (so good).

The hostess was lovely and fairly regularly throughout the flight, she made a point to stop by and chat to Sequoia and I and offer to refill. Made an interminable flight pass quite nicely. 

Just before we landed, she came up to me and handed me a little card:

She was telling me about her family and the challenges of shift work (I know!) and how nice it was to meet people like ourselves who have a big smile for the crew whilst they are doing what can be quite challenging job.

When we finally landed at Schipol, we got through passport control and customs and made our way through out into the world of Amsterdam.

We connected to the free wifi and I checked my emails. OMG! Booking.com had sent me this:

Basically, our booking, which I had made in May had now been cancelled and they were suggesting we take them up on the offer of a new much more expensive booking and they would reimburse the difference in price from our original booking upon receipt of confirmation of the payment. 

Sequoia and I were already pretty tired and with our trip budget reasonably right, I wasn't interested in forking out a couple of hundred extra dollars right at the beginning of our adventure with no idea of how long it would be before we saw any reimbursement.

So, we decided to make our way down to the boat and see what happened. It wasn't much more than a 10-15 min walk (with all our luggage down to the docks) and we were soon at our boatel.

The host couldn't have been more welcoming and there was no mention of the cancelled booking. Weird.

Before we knew it, we were installing ourselves into the world's smallest hotel room (and that is saying much after Japan). 

The rest of the boat was pleasantly appointed and the host was happy to make me up a thermos of hot water so I could make myself a coffee.

Sequoia was pretty much dead on her feet and I wasn't too far behind her. The dreaded jet lag meant I was waking every 2 hours but the view from the dock wasn't too bad so I'd spend a few minutes up above deck and then crawl back into my little bunk again.

It was an interesting experience to stay on one of the boats in the canals of Amsterdam, booking dodgy-ness aside.