Embarassing Moment in Amsterdam #1

Okay, so I promised to make public at least one of my embarassing anecdotes from Amsterdam. An "E.A.A.", we'll call it. Okay, so here goes: E.A.A. number one. Ah hah ha ha. What an appropriate title. Hang on...you'll see! Ahem. Sometimes something will happen that makes it impossible to ignore, much less simply avoid the habits of others that we find, well, unusual. Case in point: free peeing. Not sure what I'm referring to? Well, that's okay. It's probably something that you're better off being in the dark about, but a concept with which M. and I have become quite familiar with since being in Europe. Okay, so to get back to the details of embarassing moment numero uno, I'm walking along one afternoon in Amsterdam, checking things off on my list of destinations for the day. After coming out of a shop, I started walking along the adjacent canal when I realized I'd forgotten the address of my next destination. No problem! I'd packed my handy "Shopping Guide to Amsterdam" (gotta love convention freebies!) in my bag: I can get the address from there! So, I pick a vacant stretch of pavement, face downstream and set my bag down and begin rifling through. And right then is when I smell the worst stench ever. Aaah, the smell of what third-graders everywhere like to refer to as "#1". Ewww. So, I look from side to side and sure enough, the canal is right there. Keep in mind that at this point, I am so in love with Amsterdam that nothing is going to tarnish it in my mind. But at that moment, I was thinking, "Geez...if the canals smell like THAT, well, I might have to reconsider!" But, fortunately, the smell quickly went away, and I continued rifling, found the book and flipped to the appropriate page. As I'm scanning for my next address, I smell it AGAIN, the worst stinkity-stink you can imagine and I'm thinking, "Good grief! What IS going on here?" I look side to side again. Again, nothing. So I stand up, turn around, and as I do so, I discover, to my great dismay, that the patch of pavement that I have chosen to set my bag down on is, oh, 36 inches or so from an open-air urinal. Yes, people, an open-air urinal. At this point, I jump up, horrified, and start frantically feeling the back of my jacket for damp spots: yes, damp spots. THAT'S how close I was to the dude responsible for the smell! Yeah, he was just standing on the street behind a metal screen which is strategically positioned over a grate that runs, I'm guessing, into the canal over which we were standing. EWWWWWW! Okay, so we can all learn something from my mistake, here, which is: if you are in a very, very, VERY crowded city, and you see an open patch of pavement, well, there's probably a reason that it's empty! And two, if you are in Amsterdam, beware the grate in the sidewalk: if there's a waist-high metal screen in front of it, hold your nose and keep on a-walkin'!