16 feb 2005

When I come home the traffic lights are black or blinking. Amsterdam is awake but not in cars – it is awake on foot and on bike, on last trams and nightbuses. It is awake tucked into the corners of small dark pubs and crammed across crowded discoteque dancefloors.

When I come home the streets seem empty but I hear the people; their laughter leaps between the buildings and off the water. Only at this hour could one mistake the Dutch for a boisterous people, and even then one can not be sure, in all the darkness, who the voices are attached to.

The bridge before my flat is too steep for my third-hand bike, so I straddle the frame and scoot it up with my feet, one step at a time, and at the peak I jump up and coast home.