I've been singing Willie Nelson again. I don't know why, but I've always had a soft spot for the man. I find myself singing "On the road again" every time I get ready to travel. One of these days, I'm going to walk into a karaoke bar, belt out the best rendition of it I can - no doubt doing it a grave injustice - and get it out of my system. In the mean time, I'm just going to have to make the passengers around me nervous with my harmonious mumbling.

I've been fairly good about not doing the things Americans are notorious for in Amsterdam, like getting royally, non-verbally, completely wacked-off-my-gourd stoned. Well, there is something to be said for doing the tourist thing. Like "beware the imported David Lynch movies".

My Aussie partner-in-crime got me hooked on gin & tonic a few weeks ago, and I had two of them to keep the burned throat at bay. Strictly for medical reasons, of course; dry mouth is a killer. And so my good American friend, who also speaks "serve me beer or women" Spanish, and my good Mexican friend, who forgets his English when mentally crippled, found ourselves barely able to communicate.

Stumbling from De Rokerij to the Pathe Munt theater, we settled in to watch "Mulholland Drive". What I didn't know beforehand is that it's directed by David Lynch, master of the American mind-fuck movie. I spent almost the entire two hours convincing myself that it wasn't reality that was twisted, it was actually the movie. I really enjoyed it, but I still no idea what actually happened. There was a girl, and someone died, and there was lots of Dutch involved, but I think that was added later.

A friend of mine took a few shots of me at the Den Haag / Conference on Bio-Diversity action. Nothing that exciting, but you can at least see me grinning in my trademark white Greenpeace jumpsuit. Go here:

http://www.tolaris.com/journeys/images/gpdenhaag1.jpg http://www.tolaris.com/journeys/images/gpdenhaag2.jpg

Pics are high-res; I apologize for the slow download.

I rode my bike to work for the last time today. Most days, I take some combination of the Metro and riding, to save time and to be lazy. This time, I rode the whole route, taking the time to see the city on the way. My route takes me down the Amstel all the way to Waterlooplein, where most of the river splits up to various smaller canals.

For those of you that don't know, the Amstel is the river for which Amsterdam is named. It can hardly be called that anymore; it's entirely contained in canals now. It's beauty isn't diminished by this, however. The water is a clean blue (most of the canals are dark and murky), and a fascinating array of houseboats and bridges are to been seen all the way to the Centrum.

I'd forgotten how nice it is to get some exercise early in the morning. I seem to have a spring in my step today, and the morning espresso (oh, how the Dutch have turned me on to morning coffee!) was delicious. I'm going to have to start riding my bike in SF; I've got five pounds of stroopwafels to work off anyway.

Next stop: London.