I feel like we should briefly discuss my trip to the Netherlands. How should I do it? Numerically? Okay. Numerically.

1. Amsterdam is the greatest city in the world. I know that I haven't visited all the world's cities, but I have visited a lot of the ones that are purportedly "great," and Amsterdam is the best by far. I expected it to be a little seedy and debaucherous, but it wasn't. It was just beautiful, and clean, and well-run, and friendly. Honestly I have seen as many people smoking weed on my block in New York City as I did in Amsterdam.

2. Although the Red Light District is kind of gross. But it's not gross in the way that, say, Las Vegas is gross. As red light districts go, it is quite family friendly.

3. There are almost no private schools in the Netherlands. When I was told this, I frankly did not believe it, but it appears to be true. There are a few International schools (I visited an excellent one in Amsterdam), but almost all people send their kids to public schools. This means that there is something approaching equal access to education there, which I find just mind-boggling. (I mean, in America we talk a lot about equal access to education, but we all know it's a pipe dream.)

4. If we were not committed to moving to Indianapolis (Motto: "The Amsterdam of Central Indiana"), I really think we would probably move to the Netherlands, partly because...

5. There is still a vibrant book culture there. I was amazed by the quality of discussion about books in the Netherlands, both with teen readers and with reporters. Here, reporters usually ask you a lot of questions about your childhood, and how you came to be a writer, and etc etc etc etc. The questions are always about YOU, and the questions about the book are generally, "Is this character like you?" I think this is because America is a very personality-driven culture. We're more interested in who Kirsten Dunst is dating than in the quality of her performance in "Spiderman 3." (I'm guilty of this also, I should say.)

But when I was interviewed in the Netherlands, the questions were about the books. Long, thoughtful, critical discussions of my books as books, and very little about books as autobiography. It was so refreshing, and so fun. Here, for instance, is one such conversation.

Also, people there live longer. There is much less violent crime. Lower teen pregnancy rates. Better scores on standardized tests. Okay. Okay. I'll stop. I should stress that I don't think that the Netherlands is some kind of utopian paradise. I just think that they do some things well that I wish America did better.

Thanks very much to everyone at Lemniscaat for making me wish I was Dutch.