My flight from Iceland to Paris? I booked that the wrong way, from Paris to Iceland, which was the exact opposite of what I wanted to do. $80 in change fees later and you would think I would have learned my lesson and henceforth been anally careful.

I clearly have learned nothing. I am typing on my way to leaving Amsterdam. I’m at the airport, where although I thought I had booked an evening flight, au contraire, I had apparently booked the morning flight and was not on it. $200 later and I am through security and am continuing to learn the valuable lesson that I failed to apprehend the first go around.

That these twin mistakes caused my net worth to decrease by 34% should perhaps make me feel bad, but I’m surprisingly chipper as I sit in the limbo of an airport, Amsterdam behind me and Barcelona in front of me. I am drinking hot chocolate and sitting in Santa’s chair, so at this particular moment in time, it’s very difficult to feel bad about easily avoided mistakes I seem to keep making.

The narrative I’m telling myself is that since I have scored some super flight deals (I’m getting back to NYC for Barcelona for less than $400). So mistakes seem pretty karmic, a tax on some hearty times with some wonderful people.

I had a date today with a pretty Dutch girl with an easy smile. I met her last night  and heard her sing a soulful jazz song she had written. She studied music in Boston and also plays guitar and piano. These things are my kryptonite in members of the fairer gender. So, further fueling my feeling pretty alright about my recurring mishaps, had I realized ahead of time that my flight was in the morning, I would have missed out on the hot chocolate at Latei cafe across from company I was happy to keep.

Travel gives us a mandate to recognize the fleetingness of people and places–a mont here, a day there, a week here. Sometimes yes, this can be very shitty, but from the vantage point of Santa’s chair, sipping a cup of Christmas cheer, it feels lucky.

Amsterdam take a bow.  I blame you and my friend Hannah’s hospitality for this current bout of contentment. Today, not even throwing away money like it were shit-covered maggot pies can bring me down.

Amsterdam is not the failed city of moral treachery that The conservative media has a base need for it to be. But it is a place where the pot question has been answered with “no big deal.”

Someone late last night said that they regretted that foreigners when they hear “Amsterdam” most immediately associate it with pot and prostitution. But my week here is evidence enough of must how much more it is.

It is also place of delicious waffley snacks that surely have a name, streets so romantic that everyone seems to love everyone, and I suspect that when Santa stops by he hangs around longer than most cities.

There’s more to say. I was going to write about the toilets here and their interesting decision to keep deposits above water, but we are boarding now and I really ought to be on my flight this time. Must. Be. On. Flight.