Amsterdam and Tulips

Goodbye, Koninginnedag... Hello. Raleigh

On our last day of the river cruise, they offer a tour of tulip gardens.

I need to score some euros for the taxi ride the next day, so I send Mrs. Phred on the tulip tour with the camera while I walk the Amsterdam waterfront searching for an ATM.

Looks like we slept right though the Koninginnedag celebration (above image from Wiki).

It's really hard to imagine how bicycle friendly the Netherlands can be. There are bicycle paths everywhere and you I really got paranoid about walking across the red brick bike paths. They don't slow down for pedestrians or red lights and if there is a collision between a bike and a pedestrian it is always the pedestrian at fault. There must be a million bikes chained to bridges in Amsterdam. A $15,000 Toyota costs $45,000 here and gas is $10 a gallon.

Mrs. Phred comes back with a nice collection of posies pix.

Yesterday was Koninginnedag or "Queen's Day". It involves a lot of drinking and the color orange. The cleaning crews are out early dealing with broken glass and mounds of litter on the bridges and in the canals.

My eyes seem to be old and tired. I don't get so excited about exotic locales these days....maybe I should do more push ups?

The taxi ride to the airport is 50 euros. The taxi is a BMW and the driver has a suit, leather driving gloves and a shaved head with black stubble like the guy in the movie, "Transporter".

I found an interesting book for the flight back and finished it just as we touched down in North Carolina. The protagonist is ignoring his wife and having Internet sex chats with men pretending they are women. The antagonist is an evil doctor who is killing and kidnapping women he finds online so he can transplant their pineal glands....they don't make heroes or villains like they used to....but it beat staring out the window for twelve hours.

Looks like a big front and lots of rain moving though today.

On the long flight over, I gave up my bulkhead seat to some young parents who were dealing with a one-year old on their laps. Hopefully, somewhere there is a ledger of good and evil deeds being kept....For apathy you get more purgatory days...