This morning I walked to the Shelter. I don’t normally walk to work, especially so early in the morning. But my bike apparently has a unique nozzle, which needs a unique pump, to put air in the tire. I didn’t know that until this morning. So I walked.

When one walks through Amsterdam at 7:00 am, one might become privy to many interesting sites. I’ve seen fog turn a cold winter morning into an impressionistic painting, with canals disappearing into a pearly haze and church towers rising out of nothing. And I love strolling down the center of Amsterdam’s red brick streets with not a person, bike, or car to be seen and only sea gulls to be heard.

But I want to tell you about a surreal moment, not an impressionist one.

To get from my house to the hostel, I have to walk down Zeedijk, one of the oldest streets in Amsterdam. Zeedijk is also one of the more unpleasant places to walk early in the morning. Some days and nights are worse than others, but I’ve seen junkies shooting up and more on this street.

Zeedijk symbolizes Amsterdam for me: an incongruous mix of beautiful old buildings and human depravity lining the streets. I suppose this street by itself is quite surreal.

This morning wasn’t too bad. I didn’t see any junkies, but I did see two guys pulling their luggage behind them and smoking what I thought, at first, were regular cigarettes. On closer inspection, and as I smelled the smoke that drifted past me, I knew it was marijuana. In Amsterdam that’s no surprise. Especially from tourists.

What surprised me was my imagination. I’ve never had a desire to smoke marijuana, but this morning I imagined my reaction if one of those tourists offered me a puff. I even asked myself if there would ever be a circumstance where I would say “yes� to such an offer.

Like I said, I’ve never desired to smoke pot. But it was in this surprised state of mind that I saw Oliver Twist riding a bike down Zeedijk.

I promise, I didn’t smoke any pot!

Okay, so he wasn’t Oliver Twist. But this little boy with trousers that didn’t reach his ankles and feet that barely reached the peddles rode by so slowly and without a glance in any direction…he could have been a ghost. Or conjured up from the depths of my own misty mind. He certainly didn’t belong on Zeedijk at 7:00 am on a Tuesday morning.

Surreal.

And, in a strange way, worth having to walk to the Shelter this Tuesday morning.

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