It's December 5th and in Holland that means its time for Sinterklaas. The kids go to bed on the eve of December 5 with the hope of waking up to lots of great presents that Sinterklass has placed in their shoes. The Dutch are as crazy about Sinterklaas as are the Americans are about Christmas. It really is as much of a consumer holiday as Christmas in America. This weekend was insane in Amsterdam as everyone was trying to get that last minute purchase in. I just read in the Dutch newpaper, the Volkskrant, that it was a record spending weekend. The period between 1530 and 1600 was the busiest. Apparently there was an average of 290 pin (debit card) transactions per second. Man. I thought the Americans were bad. God bless capitalism.