Eight more

In just over one week, I'm off to Amsterdam for the day.

It's actually my son's 36th birthday and he's going with me.

He was born in the year of the pig in Chinese astrology. This is his year. Comes around every 12 years. Pigs - good people.

The year I turned 36, Mark was 18 years old. A lot of people remember their 30th or 40th birthday as being significant; I remember my 36th. I spent the whole day at work saying to myself, "now what?" Mark was born when I was 18 and I spent the next 18 years thinking to myself that when he was 18 years old and a "legal adult", I'd be 36 years old. And now I was 36 and wondering what came after that day.

So now we are going to the Netherlands together. For the day. Leaving Friday morning, returning Sunday morning. I have arranged to have dinner with a Dutch couple - Sienie and Saskia, a couple of 50-ish school teachers. I want to see Anne Frank's house and a vanGogh or two. Go to the Waterloopein flea market or some other open market. And maybe smoke one or two in a coffeeshop and have a jenever or two. And take a cruise through the Red Light District. Just to say we did it all! Amsterdam is known for some tourist-y stuff like sex, drugs and Rembrandt but I want to see some un-tourist-y stuff, too. The back-door places.

Amsterdam...