Lediane Toledo and I were celebrating her birthday at the Odessa Restaurant, which on a boat at the “docklands” area of Amsterdam, not far from the Lloyd Hotel. On warm summer evenings, Odessa is a great place to hang out.

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Yoezer Wine Bar: French food in the old Jaffa quarter

Mapplr’s favorite hotels in Istanbul

Maxroam helps you avoid roaming charges

Latest from Nokia: E71 and E66

Beware those 3G iPhone data plans

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Click here to read The Guardian’s hysterical minute-by-minute report of the match.

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Mapplr’s favorite restaurants and cafes in Rome

Mapplr’s favorite hotels in Hamburg

Mapplr’s favorite hotels in Venice

Catit: Mediterranean food in Tel Aviv’s trendy Neve Tzedek

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Now it seems that Starbucks is expanding in Europe. They are already ubiquitous in London but that’s not enough for the purveyors of overpriced burnt muddy water. To be fair, the pastries in London’s Starbucks cafes are much better than the abominable “sweet things” at any Starbucks in the US (I can’t even bear to call them pastries).

I don’t care if they have free Wi-Fi. For me the quality of the coffee and the atmosphere of the cafe are of utmost importance in choosing a cafe.

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I still can’t believe the news. Tom Boonen, one of the cycling’s mega-stars, has been barred from competing in 2008 because he tested positive for cocaine. He was not officially caught “doping” (i.e. using banned drugs during competition), he cannot be banned by the UCI. However, tour organizers can bar him into their races. He did not start in the Tour of Switzerland this week and he won’t be racing in the Tour de France this summer.

Although Boonen is doing very well this year, having won the Paris-Roubaix race, his personal life is a mess. He lost his Belgian driver’s license this month after being caught driving too fast (and drunk). He has already wrapped his Ferrari around a pole, allegedly trying to avoid hitting a cat. Boonen is very popular in Belgium, not just among cycling fans. What a disappointment!

Read more on Cycling News.

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As oil prices climb, we’ve seen politicians call for a moratorium on the gasoline tax. In Europe, they’re calling for a lowering of the high benzine tax, too. Truck drivers and fishermen have gone on strike and set up blockades to pressure politicians to DO SOMETHING. Unfortunately, there’s not much any one country can do, even the United States, because the price of oil is determined by a variety of factors, most of which are out of the control of any one country. But people don’t want to change their lifestyle unless forced to and this is the time to make a very good case for changing one’s lifestyle. More people are open to it these days especially now that they see the terrible effects of our addiction to oil.

Plummer says that the high price of oil will do several things:

• kill the internal combustion engine: we don’t realize that this is ancient technology, artificially kept alive by the historically low price of oil;

• reduce the clout of the Middle East as well as oil-producing countries run by a dictator: the US and Europe (as well as China, Japan and India) won’t have to meddle in their internal affairs anymore;

• develop mass transit: far more efficient People Mover; and

• lead to better urban planning.

I would add another reason: high gas prices will force people to change their toxic lifestyles. This business of sitting in a car for a hour commute to and from work is not healthy for anybody. It’s stressful and wasteful. Hopping onto an airplane for a two-hour meeting is also wasteful but people don’t think about it, until now. Why can’t they use online video conferencing from Sightspeed or Skype? I have worked in a number of tech companies and for all their techiness and love of technology, tech executives will be the first ones to jump on an airplane for a two-hour meeting in London. They won’t use video. Again, why?

Europe has fallen in love with the automobile despite the high price of gas. In the Netherlands, I’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of SUVs just the in past five years. The traffic jams on the motorways are getting worse every year and the Ministry of Transportation’s response is to lay down more concrete. Not smart in a tiny, densely populated country that consistently violates EU norms for air pollution. In a place like the Netherlands, public transport is a perfect way to move people and by US standards, the public transport system here is excellent. But it needs to be improved: the trains need to run more efficiently and on time, the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-The Hague region should be treated as one metro area with ONE transport system, like the Paris Metro-RER. The government needs to stop delaying high-speed rail projects like the TGV (Thalys). The TGV has to slow down once it reaches the Dutch border (with Belgium) because of supposed problems with safety. Why is it in Belgium it’s been running at peak speeds for several years now? The Dutch and the Germans need to come together to build a high-speed rail network between Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Stuttgart, Munich. Right now, Deutsche Bahn has excellent high-speed rail service, but in Germany. When the trains come to the Netherlands, they crawl.

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Free Wi-Fi service on trains in Denmark

FON’s global wireless ambitions: what’s taking so long?

You guys are cheap: WiMAX service for no more than $20 per month

Public transport Wi-Fi is hot: SF BART to be unwired

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Apple has 66 percent of market for $1000-plus computers

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Miniloft Mitte Berlin

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I’m a dinosaur: I still love print

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Restaurants

Mapplr’s favorite hotels in Prague

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