It’s 4 am & we have everything ready to go. Yep, everything we need for the next 10 weeks…hopefully. Randy (Roxy’s brother) is taking us to the airport.

Relaxing in Philadelphia after the 5 hour flight from Sky Harbor. We had a 5 hour layover before another 7 hours to Amsterdam…..long day!

There’s our ride to Amsterdam.

We ate, snoozed poorly, watched movies, listened to audiobooks & lost track of time on the overseas flight. What day is it? Amsterdam is 9 hours ahead of Phoenix.

We made it to our hotel! The bus from the airport was a learning experience. It wasn’t clear how to pay. It’s actually easy, tap a credit card when you get on and again when getting off. Not so easy for sleep deprived gals, didn’t realize we had to tap out! Seems the $6 trip became $10. Price of education!

It was a beautiful sunny day when we arrived, the first one of the season! Any place with outdoor seating was packed with folks enjoying sun.

The Grote Kerk or St Bavo church in Haarlem. It started out as a Catholic cathedral. It was confiscated & converted to Protestantism in the 1500's during the Protestant Reformation. Beautiful architecture.

Even though we were tired, we enjoyed walking, soaking up the scenery & sun. There are canals everywhere, more later!

This little courtyard is part of a Hofje (pronounced hofia). Hofje means small garden. They are surrounded by almshouses (charitable housing). From the 1300's, wealthy individuals created these for poor unmarried or widowed women.