The dangers of Amsterdam

I am not sharing this story with you all to scare you, but more to make you aware of what can happen when biking around Amsterdam late at night.

Last night, Dave and I were biking home from a party. It was after midnight. It was very dark and raining so visibility was low and the roads were wet. There were many people walking around the streets of Amsterdam, even on a rainy night, and just as we were biking past a group of (I'm assuming very drunk) people, someone lunged out and pushed me.

Luckily they hit my arm and not my face or abdomen. And, luckily, because I'm such a strong and skilled biker I managed to remain in control of the bike and not fall (or crash into Dave who was biking beside me because then he would have fallen). It was very painful and quite scary. I'm hoping that person didn't realize that I was a woman (because I had a hat on and a big winter jacket) because who in their right (or even drunken) mind would push an innocent woman biking by in the rain. I hadn't said anything to them or even looked at them.

We stopped our bikes a few meters down the road but what were we going to do? We figured confronting this group of people (who was in the mindset to push innocent people off their bikes) would be a mistake. So we composed ourselves and rode home. I was so angry that I couldn't do anything about this! No one was around to help us and I wasn't going to start screaming down the street at them.

Anyway, the moral of this story is, if you're biking around Amsterdam late at night when all of the drunkards are out, try not to bike within arms reach of them. Apparently when you're wasted it's funny to push over people biking by. Shit heads.