live from amsterdam

Greetings from the great medieval capital of the Netherlands from whence I file my dispatch today. A very pleasant plane journey of barely an hour saw us climb through a delightfully fluffy cumulus base, before rising above it to see a vista of cloud streets that extended hundreds of miles to the norht-east. The pilot had promised us rain on our arrival, but in the event conditions were fine and I was able, despite my anxieties at having to handle such arrangements without the assistance of my wife, to secure a train ticket from a touch-screen dispenser (although I think I bought 2 by mistake)and find the right train to Amsterdam Centraal, this in the face of someone who insisted that a particular train was the right one and that I should accompany him onto it, although it had "Utrecht" marked clearly on its side. Once I had sat down an announcement came on in English to warn that
"This is NOT the Amsterdam train: the Amsterdam train is next"
I got off with some alacrity, though the passenger who had given me incorrect counsel appeared unmoved and remainedwhere he was.

I have promised myself to do 8 hours of writing in the 3 days I am here, and I have already written about 1400 words in about 3 hours, so I am a bit ahead of schedule. Tomorrow I am off to the Van Gogh Museum, which I have not visited in 14 years and has been ceompletely re-done in the interim. Should be fun...