Three Shoes to Amsterdam

I recently had the good fortune to visit Belgium and Holland for two weeks. Unfortunately, I broke my ankle three weeks before leaving. So, for the entire trip I wore the big, black velcro boot. I packed three shoes; one walking shoe (what a joke), one flip-flop, and one teva.

I departed my hometown on 9/11. Since the airport-supplied wheelchair won't go through the metal detector, the airport security personnel gave me the choice of "sit in the chair and get 'patted down,' or stand and be 'wanded.'" I stood.

Fifteen and a half hours of being crammed into airline sardine chair. Curtailing liquid intake to keep to a minimum trips hopping crutches crab-sideways down the isle to the lavatory. "Unusual Liesions and the Lessons They Teach," was playing on the man in the next seat's laptop. Mammograms. Ordered 'special' vegetarian meals when booking flight. Nothing special about them.


Landed Schiphol Amsterdam, rented car, headed into the city to visit tropical palm tree decorated coffee shops. There's no parking in Amsterdam and all the narrow, cobblestone streets are one-way in the opposite direction you want to go. There's no end to the bicycles. All shapes, sizes, colors, plain or decorated, fat tires, wide handlebars, big wooden tubs over the front tires, and upright perfect posture riders in family groups like a ballet troupe peddle effortlessly by with total right-of-way.

Unable to get a room in Amsterdam due to a convention, we head southwest to Zeeland, the area where New Zealanders originally came from, aka Middelburg.