The Future's All Yours, You Lousy Bicycles

There is a such thing as too much public transportation. Take Amsterdam. I begin any street-crossing already confused: the British haven’t gotten it together yet and figured out how to drive on the correct side of the road, so I’m now used to looking right first, which, as I was reminded the hard way, is not the way to look first when crossing a street in the civilized world. To make matters worse, they have kamikaze bicyclists in Amsterdam, young and old, flying around on old-fashioned “Rain Drops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” style bicycles, scarves whipping around their heads, blinding them to the plight of the unfortunate pedestrian. Or it's possible they just don't care. You step off the curb and inevitably a bicycle will try to run you down in cold blood. No compassion. I've seen it. On top of that, you can look to your left and see a tram, with a bus trapped behind it on the road, and then a taxi behind said bus, all without using turn signals and with a myriad of road choices and no signs as to what’s going through the drivers’ heads. Locals seems to have figured it all out, where the trams go when, and when they stop and go, and when they turn and when to stop and watch the pitiful tourist yelp and hop out of the way pronto. My theory is telepathy. No ther explanation. But seriously, do they really need all the public transportation, walking, biking, tramming, taxiing, busing? If it's not a bicycle coming at me, it's a tram, and they both come out of nowhere...

At any rate, it’s our last few hours in Amsterdam, and we start out with a breakfast of omelets and overpriced coffee (that’s one of the biggest things I miss from the US, coffee that is not watered-down espresso and that comes with free refills, all for 89 cents) while people watching from the top floor of some hole-in-the-wall joint. It’s deceptively sunny and cold; the weather looks very inviting from inside, but the bundled-up passers-by say otherwise. We then continue for some souvenir shopping. We get the obligatory wooden clogs for my friend Laura from back home and postcards for all, and do some window-shopping and the like. We meander through more canals, Jonmikel looking for more houseboats to buy and ship to somewhere with more excitement, like the Mississippi River. We eventually, through our ambling, end up at the train station and, eventually, the airport, where we manage to spend every Euro and Euro cent we’ve got. It’s too bad we have to fly during such nice, sunny winter weather, and I secretly hope Jonmikel got the flight times mixed up so I don’t have to end the vacation just yet. I want my birthday weekend to last longer, as it has been one of my favorites. How did I get so lucky to find Jonmikel (I know, it’s corny, and you gag reflex is kicking in)?