The Mac Minute

Yesterday, Celina, Kay and I went over to Delft. It’s a short drive from Rotterdam and a fun day-trip to break us in. First we visited the Royal Porcelain Factory and then we went over the the town square. It was market day, so we walked around and checked-out the booths. We then went and visited the “New Chruch” where most of the Dutch royalty is intered, and then walked a short way and visited the “Old Church.” Both are pretty neat and have some interesting history and architecture. We were going to climb up to the bell town at the New Church, but it was too windy so they weren’t letting anyone up.
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written by Mac at 3:04 pm, Mar 31, 2006

After many hours on the plane, and not sleeping, we arrived in Amsterdam. As we were exiting the plane I was quickly reminded that we are tourists visiting. The stewardist was saying good bye to everyone in Dutch except us, she simply stated bye-bye.

The weather was beautiful yesterday, partly cloudy in the morning and sunny the rest of the day. Last night it started to rain, which is very common.

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written by KayLynn at 10:18 pm, Mar 29, 2006

We finally made it to the Netherlands. Our flight to JFK went a little long, but the flight to Amsterdam was shorter by about an hour, plus in a bigger and a little roomier plane. We are now at Jeff and Celina’s place ready to go to sleep, hoping to shake the jetlag soon. We hope Gil’s Melatonin does the trick for us.

We stopped by IKEA with Celina on the way to Rotterdam. Then we met up with Jeff during lunch at a nearby market. Had some deep-fried fish of some sort and a Vietnamese egg-roll. It is a little ironic to see an American speaking Vietnamese to a market vendor in Holland.

We added the first day’s pictures to the gallery.

written by Mac at 11:11 am, Mar 29, 2006

So a couple months ago I spent quite a bit of time researching the best VOIP plan. I was really getting sick of the outrageous cost of my Qwest service, and it was time for a change. I figured a standard VOIP setup would cut my Qwest bill by about $60. (I still need Qwest for my DSL line, although I do use someone else for my ISP.)

Since Vonage was been heavily marketed I figured they had to be one of the more expensive providers, which turned out to be true. After much research I narrowed down the field to a couple choices: Broadvoice and SunRocket.

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written by Mac at 10:41 pm, Mar 26, 2006

Just added the itinerary page. (See the link over there in the right column under “The Pages.”) We’ll be adding more detail to it as we have time.

If you have any suggestions of places we should visit, leave a note for us. We would love to hear from you.

written by Mac at 9:49 pm, Mar 26, 2006

Ok, here is the basic itinerary for our trip so you have an idea where we will be when.

Generally speaking, we are staying with our good friends Jeff and Celina Lay in Rotterdam, Netherlands, although part of the trip we will be on our own in Switzerland and France. Jeff and Celina lived two doors down from us in Springville, and are the best thing that happened to us there. Jeff works for Novell and is currently working in their European office in Rotterdam.

Flights:

Tuesday, March 28th
Delta Flight 340: 9:51am – 4:14pm SLC to JFK
Delta Flight 80: 6:15pm – 9:20am (29th) JFK to AMS (Amsterdam)

Monday, April 3rd
EasyJet Flight 956: 8:30am – 10:00am AMS to GVA (Geneva, Switzerland)

Thursday, April 6th
EasyJet Flight 1031: 6:40am – 7:50am BSL (Basel, Switzerland) to XDT (Paris, Charles de Gaulle, France)

(We’ll take a train back to Rotterdam on Saturday.)

Tuesday, April 11th
Delta Flight 39: 10:20am – 2:00pm AMS to ATL (Atlanta)
Delta Flight 520: 5:45pm – 7:58pm ATL to SLC

General Schedule:

Mon Mar 27: In the evening take the kids to Monique’s house and put them to bed. Go home to finish whatever.
Tue Mar 28: Dad Evans takes us to the airport. Fly to Amsterdam. (13 hours, Ugh!)
Wed Mar 29: Arrive in Amsterdam, drive down to Rotterdam. (Try not to sleep!)
Thu Mar 30:
Fri Mar 31:
Sat Apr 1:
Sun Apr 2: General Conference. (In Dutch?)
Mon Apr 3: Fly to Geneva, then drive to Interloken. Stay the night in Interloken.
Tue Apr 4: Drive to Bern to the Swiss Temple to do some temple work. Drive to Zurich to stay the night.
Wed Apr 5: Check out Zurich, Berg am Irchel and whatever else around. Drive to Basel to stay the night.
Thu Apr 6: Get up REAL early. Fly to Paris.
Fri Apr 7: Paris, France.
Sat Apr 8: Take the train back to Rotterdam.
Sun Apr 9: Go to church with Jeff and Celina.
Mon Apr 10: See more of Holland.
Tue Apr 11: Fly home. Hug our kids lots and lots.

written by Mac at 9:14 pm, Mar 26, 2006