We planned and discussed and planned some more.  

The question was how could I get to Amsterdam and have a persistent net connection as I walked and biked through the city. I had redundancy, at Doc's suggestion -- but here I am in Amsterdam and neither of my phones are able to get on the Internet, even over wifi. 

The two phones: 

1. iPhone4 with AT&T's international plan.  

2. Nexus S with maxroam.com. 

The iPhone just sits there. The map insists that I'm still at JFK. Gmail just sits there. Makes no difference if I'm on wifi or using KPN NL.  

The Nexus S presents a screen that says it couldn't connect to my Google account. It offers to let me type in my password, which I do, and it still says it can't connect. Same with maxroam.com or wifi. (No problem accessing my Google account on my MacBook over wifi.) 

I don't doubt that, given all the geeks we have here, that we will sort it all out eventually.