The Renée Review

July 20, 2005 – Off to Amsterdam, Holland / Netherlands

This trip began in the same fashion as all our other trips…a crazy, last minute packing frenzy! Paul jokingly commented that regardless of the length of time we are packing for; a day, a week, etc. we always seem to need the same number of hours for packing the luggage…and so it goes, packing, which began at about 3:00pm on July 19th spilled into the wee morning hours of today, allowing for the typical 3 hours of sleep. This time, packing was truly a marathon! Just getting the household organized; house sitting, mail collection, bookkeeping, etc… Our trip ends on August 18th -30 nights from today. Between you and me, I was lobbying for 40 nights for 40 years, but hey, I’ll take 30! This is the longest vacation we’ve ever taken and having spent the last 10 months researching destinations, things to do, cultural dos & don’ts, etc., the excitement has reached boiling point.

To make our departure more fun, our sleep was interrupted by a 3:45am phone call from the concierge of the Amsterdam Pulitzer hotel offering service for airport transfers. What clue bus did she miss? One would think a European, North American time change would be common knowledge and that this concierge would have considered this BEFORE calling and waking us at that profane hour. In any event, we made it – bleary eyed and tired – to the Denver International Airport ready for our adventure.

We flew United Airlines first class service, enjoying the wonderful sleeper seats provided on our 777. Our flights were the ultimate in comfort and luxury for commercial aviation. Both our Denver to Dulles crew and our Dulles to Amsterdam crew were excellent. It really makes a profound difference when flight attendants are professional, friendly and smile easily. This description fits our long haul crew perfectly.

This was my third occurrence in trans Atlantic first class, but my first with the sleeper seat. The experience was lovely, especially the $15.00 price tag. OK, OK, flights are more costly than that, but we had miles and we splurged!!! If you’ve got them, use them! It was totally worth it!

For your foodies out there & to my Father who loves knowing what everyone is eating up front, the menu was surprisingly satisfying and the wine list was enjoyable.

Before the meal, roasted mixed nuts were served with a 1997 Pommery Cuvee LOUISE Champagne. Next, I sampled an appetizer variety of minced shrimp and scallops prepared in a pastry purse served with a spicy cream sauce “different.” Then, an Asian barbecued pork lettuce wrap topped with a ginger chili sauce, “yum” and a porcini mushroom topped with olive & feta cheese, “yuck!”

The appetizers were followed by a delicious fresh salad. Topping the salad were grape tomatoes, cucumber, Jamaican jerk chicken and balsamic vinaigrette. Additionally offered were a selection of breads, I chose foccacia.

For the main course – Tilapia fillet with cornbread crust and sides of broccoli, artichoke and pepper medley, cubed yams and fingerling potatoes. A 2002 Bouchard Beaune Blanc Premier Cru white Burgundy wine accompanied all this.

Unfortunately, the fish was very fishy and the broccoli was very wilted. Mind you, I’m not hungry while writing this; I was full after the appetizers and thoroughly finished & enjoyed every bite of my salad.

After lots of movies, sleep, food and more food – yes there was another meal an hour or so before landing, we arrived in Amsterdam at 6:30am. The morning was sunny, all our luggage made it and we proceeded to find a taxi to our canal district hotel, The Pulitzer.