First rollerblading adventure in Amsterdam

People often ask me why I'm not biking in Amsterdam, and I often answered with I didn't want to buy a new bike and that I have my blades and I'd blade instead. So here is it, my first blading advanture:

At first I thought it'd be very easy. The streets aren't busy and there are bike lanes. True to non-busy streets, but bike lanes do not make things better. I hadn't bladed for man since 2003(?) so I immediately fell when I attempted to step off the sidewalk onto the street. Ok...stepping up was fine but stepping down was too big a challenge to conquer after 10 years. A lot of streets are brick-paved so there are a lot of friction. You also need to shift your balance a lot for some of those random protrusion on the roads. The bike lanes are smoother, but there are a lot of fast bikes that don't follow traffic rules. I had to hop onto the sidewalk and hop off quite frequently to let the bikes pass. That only works assuming there are no pedestrians on the sidewalk the moment you want to hop up.

The second challenge is with the traffic lights. Bikes got their own lights but you gotta know to make emergency brakes after crossing the streets into the bike crossings. So my choice is to wait till the intersection is almost devoid of bikes. I crossed with the pedestrian lights one time but that was horrible and dangerous. On bigger streets, pedestrians make multiple crossings. They make intermittent stops on the islands. That is blading nightmare. So you blade for 3 meter, make a solid stop. Cars are still going in front of you, and before you can go forward, cars start to go behind you. With nothing to hold on to make a solid stand it was a lot of work. Today it was even more dangerous since the island was crowded with peds. So I had to make a T-stand on the edge of the road hoping cars would not run me over. Luckily the streets weren't busy.

All in all, today with blading I saved about 5-10 minute on my journey. Next time I'll have to plan my crossings ahead of time for a safer journey. It was quite a work-out though at least.

Registering at City Hall and car ...final chapter

Finally all paper works are done (crossing my fingers). It wasn't uneventful. Got a different person at the City Hall and she was clueless. "Why did we ask for the household registries?  What was wrong with the birth certificates?" At this point I was too tired to explain too much. At the end I just submitted both documents up. It was up to them to decide what they want to use. I am done with my end of the business. They told me they'd send me communique within 4 weeks, but I hadn't heard from them for 2 months. I went into the City Hall to ask about it, got the original documents back. There was a letter in our file dated 2 weeks ago that was supposed to have been sent out to ask me to pick up the documents. The lady told me that I will receive the letter in the mail in a couple of days and I should just ignore it since I was already there picking up the documents. (Talk about bureaucracy.) You wouldn't believe it though, I went in to the city hall at around mid-March to pick up the documents. The letter was dated early March. And I just received those letters in my mail in mid-April. Anyways, I'm just glad it's over (knocking on wood).

As with car, applied and got my driver's license. Had to submit in my US license. They wouldn't return the license back to me, instead they forward the license to the US embassy or consulates here. I doubt I can pick up my US license from the consulates here. I just applied for a replacement license with the DMV. At least I could do that online and that was easy. Only cost me about 20 bucks. However, I-Sheng had a conditional license that expired along with his US visa, so he cannot apply for a replacement license. If we are moving back to the States again, he may have to retake the driving tests. Oh...well...

Cambridge, England Photos

Lovely little town. The fudges are too sweet for my liking. Definitely recommend punting. If you got a pair of strong hands, it's more economical to punt yourself.

https://plus.google.com/photos/113880069774612153445/albums/5856420208719629841?authkey=CKmZnKS5g6GcTw