Kicking off the ancient dust on my shoes

Back from my ten-day trip starting in Amsterdam and moving to Kinderdijk, to Cologne, to Koblenz, to Heidelberg, to Strasbourg to Breisach and ending briefly in Basel, Switzerland.

Lots of food and wine, lots of tours of cathedrals, museums, cultural spots and quaint medieval structures. This type of thing always reminds me of how naive Americans are to think that the history of our country is weighty in time. We are just babes in the woods of civilization.

Amsterdam is a high-energy city with a young population.  They have a population of close to one million and at least 1.8 million bikes.  While they have an excellent tram and bus system, the streets are cobbled in places and narrow in others with limited car parking.  Most bike owners have "backup" bikes to use when their bike gets stolen.  There is a whole black market where a stolen bike can be purchased to replace your stolen bike.  The police offer no real assistance as this seems to be too routine to attempt to enforce.

I did wonder how on earth a tired worker found his bike at the end of the day!  

We were cautioned about kami-kazi bike riders many times as we got in the habit of looking both ways when crossing streets.

Amsterdam is a very liberal city as most people know.  We accidentally walked around the red-light-district, but the only way one would recognize it in the daytime was the pornographic postcards and the fluorescent condom displays in some windows.  Night time is when the curtains are drawn open and women advertise, and we were tucked safely back in our hotel rooms by then.

The flower market sells cannabis seeds and there are pot-pubs to kick back and relax.  These areas were obvious by the many cigarette butts in front of the sidewalks the next day.

The city itself is very safe and lovely with surprisingly clean canals.  We did take a canal ride, but the walks were more rewarding.

We have been home for days, but I caught a cold two days before our flight home and while I managed to hold it together for the 7.5 hour flight, I completely collapsed upon our return and have been in bed being lazy for the last three or four days...what day is it anyway?  I actually felt sorrier for the Ukrainian of over 6 feet who had to sit next to me in the window seat in pretzel formation listening to my sniffling!  I hope his business trip was healthy!