The Nazis were out in force today. As I was returning from the grocery store, which is a few blocks away, I watched in horror how a cop was writing this woman a ticket for not having a light on her bike. His partner was loitering in wait for another victim. Thankfully I was on foot, but I halfway expected to be pulled over myself, even though there didn't seem to be any reason for it. The horror, I come to the end of the block and there too there's cops. I glance across the street in one of those "what would I have done" moments and I see more cops. It's a trap.

It's obvious they're trying to catch as many people as possible. Dressed in black, you don't seem them from far away and it's just after dark, so they're stopping a lot of people who probably thought they would be home before dark. And for what? I could understand this rule about lights after dark. If you live on a farm. Or cycling cross country through a forest. Then it would be impossible to see you. But this is a city, the streets are relatively well lit, and there are no high speed roads, no big intersections, and no speeding by motorists.

Fining bikers for not having lights is akin to fining soldiers for having dirty uniforms after battle. In fact, maybe if bike theft wasn't so rampant, people would actually have nicer bikes, with lights, brakes and the works. How about doing something that? Then you'd actually be helping us.

I had to show my passport four times traveling from Warsaw to Amsterdam. First at the check-in counter, where I got my boarding pass. Then at the passport control that separates the main hall from the waiting area for travelers. Then at the gate my luggage was scanned, but before I could board the plane, I had to show my passport again. Is this really necessary? If there's a *hello* passport control, how about we let them worry about passports? What is the point of checking the same document over and over? If the check-in process denied us boarding cards without a valid passport, wouldn't that be enough? On the other hand, if I check in online, I don't have to show my passport, so why do I have to do it at the airport? Get a grip, will you.

Then I arrive at Schiphol, and I have to go through another passport control (just one this time) to get to the baggage claim. Little did I know when she asked me the most unexpected question. "What is your destination?" "Huh?!?" Did I end up in Transfer instead of Baggage Claim? No way, I did follow the right signs. "Uhm, I just arrived." "What is your destination?" What the hell are you talking about? For a moment I thought she needed to know where I had come in from, so I said that. Now I was positively stumped. I'm *at* my destination, why would she ask me a question like that? "Do you want to go to Amsterdam?" Look lady, I just got off a plane, right? *In* Amsterdam. If I had a connecting flight, I would go to Transfer. If I had a connecting flight, my baggage would also be routed to the new flight, so there would be no reason for me to go to Baggage Claim. *Everyone* who goes to Baggage Claim is headed to Amsterdam. So what the hell are you on about?

It occurs to me that perhaps someone has a connecting flight with an eight hour stopover, and they want to go into the city in the meantime. To get out of the airport, they have to pass through the Baggage Claim (and show their passport), but obviously without claiming any baggage. So that's only explanation I can imagine. But if so, isn't there some more logical way of asking that question, other than to confuse all those who have arrived in Amsterdam without planning to leave soon? *But*, even if this were the case, once they leave the airport, they are breathing the sweet, sweet Dutch air. It doesn't matter what their plans are after that, cause if they desperately wanted to come to Amsterdam, and used a pretext of a further destination, they've arrived anyway and there's damn all you can do about it. So in _those_ cases, they would just run the passport, and if it came up positive for Extremely Objectionable Person, they would just deny them exit of the airport. There would be no need to ask any questions anyway. So.. get a grip.

On a different note, they refuse to tell you why you have to unpack your laptop and run it through the x-ray separately. I asked the guy at Schiphol, and the joker that he was, he said "if you come work for us, we'll tell you". How witty. So I say "but it still goes through the same machine". "Yes, but then we can't see it booting." I *think* that's what he said, I don't remember the exact words. I was playing them back in my mind and I couldn't make any sense of it. I'm guessing he had no idea what he was saying.

Ah, New Year's Eve. Awesome if you've never seen fireworks. Otherwise, as established in 2005, New Year's generally sucks. Though this year there was a new twist to it all. The venue - the venerable Old Town in the capital. It's quite a voyage to get there, even if you happen to live by the one line of subway that Warsaw has so far (which really undermines the whole point of having a subway, by the way). Get off at City Hall and you're near, the Old Town is but a short walk away.

Although this was indeed New Year's Eve, in a city of indeed 1.7 million people (Wikipedia), the Old Town wasn't exactly busy. Nor was it even lit up. Indeed, a big Christmas tree with a "Merry Christmas" neon sign, in small face "by Company X" outside the Royal Castle. But no other special lighting or anything fancy like that, the Market Place was completely dead as well. About half the people out were tourists, mostly Japanese with cameras (who knew), but a lazy Sunday afternoon might draw more people to this place than, well, New Year's Eve, apparently. The cops were out in force, every 50m there two of them, in black uniforms ornamented with yellow fluorescent vests.

For New Year's, the atmosphere was extremely timid. Very few fireworks in the sky, both here and elsewhere in the city that you could see. Finally, around midnight, the festivities started in the square outside the castle. The Polish have long and strong traditions of firework abuse, and the first notable rocket hit the castle wall, bounced off, and exploded near a couple of cops. Most people were standing at the highest point in the square, around a statue, on the sidewalk around the square. One of the fireworks misfired and exploded literally 10m away from the people closest to the square, scaring the hell out of some and causing them to step back. Hilarious. :D

As it was about ten to midnight, the explosions were now closer together. One of the rockets apparently exploded right near the neon sign by the Christmas tree, the sign went ablaze. The cops were looking ominous, but they exhibited a generous dosage of Scandinavian cool. Some got on the radio, but none of them actually did anything to tame the fire. It's just a shame that the damn tree wouldn't burn, it would have been fun to see it fall to the ground. :D Christmas is over, by the way.

There were several different languages around me, but I practically had Swedish right in my ear, giving a running commentary of the action. I didn't mind though, the girl was cute. At midnight, there was a culmination of explosions, and a whole lot of noise from far and near for those who don't especially value their hearing. Several more fireworks went practically along the ground in the square, from one side to the other, as bottles were knocked over when the rockets ignited. I don't think anyone got hurt, but the January 1st news always report the number (in thousands, customarily) of people severely injured by fireworks the night before. Apparently, the cops were on scene to make sure everything was civilized, but frankly they were entirely redundant since they clearly didn't plan to restrict what people did with their fireworks.

Then, around ten past, we hurried to catch the last subway home. Indeed, a night to look forward to the whole year. Here's a hot tip. If you're torn between an invitation to a private party and going to the Old Town for New Year's, go with the former.

I take paracetamol about once a month, maybe less often, for headaches. I get headaches more often than that, but I try to do without drugs, cause I'm afraid of depending on them.

A few weeks ago my supply ran out, so I was in Kruidvat for some other goods and I thought I would restock. To my surprise, they have a whole shelf just for paracetamol. They have them in different mixtures (low concentration for kids etc) and quantities. I finally found "the regular one" and I noticed it was a pack of a hundred. Yes, ONE-HUNDRED. Who needs this much paracetamol? It would last me a lifetime. Or if I do take one per month, over 8 years. I'm not sure you're supposed to store drugs for that long.

When I listen to Dutch radio, I realize my instinctive comprehension has come some way since March. There are now quite a few words I associate reasonably well to Norwegian words, without having to check. Even the weird ge- prefix is starting to feel somewhat understandable. "heb gevonden" - "har funnet", yeah I can follow that. But there is still one major problem, the rhrhrhrh throaty 'h' the Dutch love so. It's like a scrambler. When I hear it in a sentence, in a word I don't recognize, it momentarily cuts my concentration, so for the next 200 ms after that, I miss whatever comes. Worse still, when it comes multiple times in quick succession, it might as well be klingon, I completely lose track.

What happens is that when listening in on a foreign language, I'm seeing the letters and words as they are spoken. Not visually, but my mind takes them one by one and puts them together. I can visualize the word and see the letters if I want to, but by default it's enough to just hear it and the mind will figure it out. The first step is to figure out where words end. Then it is visualizing the words and looking them up against all known words (in languages familiar). But when that rhrhrhrh sound comes into a sentence, it's like a system crash, all information is lost and for a while until the system comes back up, I'm unable to collect any data at all.

Those devious Dutch.