I’ve written before about my favorite airport around the world being the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. I’m writing this on my way back from India having been shooting there for the past eight weeks. Having a 9 hour layover in Amsterdam inspired my wife to look into a mini-hotel known as the Yotel here in the airport. I mention in the following video that I thought it was a Japanese company that came up with the Yotel concept, but I just looked Yotel up on the Internet and I was wrong. It’s actually a couple of guys from Britain who hatched  the idea and wanted to design something with a Japanese flair. They got that right. You can read more about the company and see more of their locations on the Yotel website. Long story short, I’ve done a mini movie showing the Yotel room and discussing the benefits. Next time you pass through the Amsterdam airport you might want to give your body a break and stay with the friendly folks at the Yotel. I know my 9 hour layover is going to be much more relaxing than what it would have been without the comfy little room. Oh, and did I mention they have great Internet connections that are included in your stay.

One of my favorite places to check for camera gear is a really great electronics store in Amsterdam. They have a good selection of top name camera products from Nikon, Canon, Panasonic, Olympus and others. They stock bodies and lenses as well as other digital requirements such as Sandisk cards, hard drives and jump drives too. You can even pick up an iPad, Macbook Air or any of the Apple Macbook Pros. Items I’ve mentioned cover just a small portion of what they sell. Lots of point and shoots, shavers, books, magazines, headphones and just about anything you can imagine. Really nice store.

The See Buy Fly Electronics store in the Schiphol International Airport in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

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With all the travel that Tanya and I do, we decided long ago to pick one quality airline and try our best to fly  them as much as possible. Committing to one airline provides us with tremendous perks. In our case it’s been Delta and it was Northwest before that. Each of these U.S. carriers have provided mostly wonderful service for my nearly 30 years of travel. When they see how often we fly, many times they bend over backwards to make our traveling life more comfortable.  However, one of the downsides can raise its ugly head when traveling overseas, as I’m doing now, flying from Nairobi to Amsterdam. When we leave U.S. air space all bets are off.

Our adventure in travel patience all began last November when KLM, Delta’s international partner airline, cancelled our flight from Nairobi to Amsterdam. Thankfully they had the courtesy to rebook us on Kenya Air which disrupted our schedule but, hey, we rolled with the punches and left for the airport for the new 5:30am flight. Our plans to kick back at the beautiful Norfolk hotel and leave that afternoon at 3:30pm had to be changed. So much for a little R&R between Kenya and Costa Rica. Little did we know, the first change was only the beginning.

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