I'm spending my winter holiday somewhere south of the Netherlands, where it's colder but sunnier and more picturesque - that is, if you're into mountains and that sort of thing.

But let's not talk about scenery. I want to share my amazement at the sheer number of people that live in Northern Europe compared to my homeland in the Midwest, and their cumulative effect on what constitutes a "traffic jam." Yesterday, I spent six hours trying to get out of Paris - that's six hours to travel 150 kilometers. There's about 61 million people in France, and I think all of them were on the same road as I was. And I'm sure a few Dutch, Germans, etc. were taking up some of that space, too. I've never seen anything like it, unless you count a few stop-and-go blizzards I ran into with my family on the way to Kansas as a child.

In comparison, there's only a little over 5 million residents in Minnesota. Or look at it this way: The entire population of the Midwest is about 66 million and occupies a much larger area than France. You do the math. I guess it makes sense that traffic jams are much worse in Europe. Maybe next time I'll take the train.