I Like Feeling Competent

So far we haven't withdrawn, used or even touched any Euro coins or currency. We use credit cards for everything and almost exclusively rely on public transportation.

The last time I didn't own a car was in 1979, and I don't speak French or Dutch. Can we do it? Can we find our way here and there without getting lost or having a meltdown? Where? When? How? How much? What if...?

Amsterdam Centraal railway station, pictured above, is housed in a castle-like building in front of the IJ waterway and connects passengers to ferries, buses and a metro system. It's intimidating.

At first, our days featured hesitancy at every crosswalk, triple-checking at every connection, paranoia about making mistakes. We learned to trust the maps on apps at our fingertips, trust our eyes, trust the symbols on directional signs, trust that the consequences of our mistakes would be tolerable, and trust that the prices were reasonable.

And trust that the cost of rental cars, Ubers and taxis would bust our budget.

In Geneva, we rode the tram from our hotel near the airport into the old part of the city, using passes given to us by our hotel. We rode a bus to the UN and botanical gardens.

We took a train to Montreux. Then a train/bus combination to Gruyère. And a train back to Geneva. A tram to CERN. Another tram to the airport, for a flight to Amsterdam followed by a train to Utrecht. The train rides are smooth and they run on time.

Everything so far has operated on a tap-to-pay system. (Same for restaurants and everything else.) Tap your credit card and off you go.

The only Uber ride was to get to Kasteel de Haar, where the next bus from the Breukelen train station was running too late to make our ticketed entry time.

And there's the emotional satisfaction of competence. We can do this! At first, every successful trip deserved a small celebration–a high five, or fist pump. Soon we celebrated being able to find the Utrecht Centraal station without consulting a map. It's as if these cities put a great deal of thought and investment into creating an interconnected transportation infrastructure that moves masses of people around, efficiently, without a lot of cars. Crazy, right?

The streets are much quieter than in the U.S. too, especially in The Bicycle-Obsessed Netherlands. An ambulance, its sirens on, passed us one day in Amsterdam. What was jarring was the realization that all of the other days, we didn't hear the constant chaos of ambulances, fire engines, police cars, and honking motorists that punctuated our five months in Washington, DC.

Instead of cars everywhere, we see people walking and riding bicycles everywhere. They look healthy. The air is clean.

I like feeling competent. It's nice.

By the numbers (so far):

0 rental cars

1 Uber ride

1 Airbnb rental

2 weeks behind us, 10 more to go

3 hotels

7 cities visited: Geneva, Montreux, Gruyère, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Breukelen, Delft

11 train platforms at Amsterdam Centraal, each with one side for eastbound and one for westbound trains

13 minutes to walk from our Airbnb to Utrecht Centraal railway station, our main hub for the last week-and-a-half

22 miles from Utrecht Centraal to Amsterdam Centraal (this costs ten euros per trip, with no parking costs or hassles)

$49 average ground transportation cost (two people, round trip) for day trips from Utrecht to Amsterdam, Breukelen or Delft

11,000 parking spaces in Amsterdam Centraal's bicycle parking garages

16,830 average steps per day over the last week