We Love Amsterdam! It is definitely a more chaotic city, but it has a lot of charm. It reminded me of a combination of Rome and Venice. Navigating the streets is a bit crazy because at every intersection there are bikes, mopeds, trams, buses and when you get in their way they’ll let you know.
We lucked out with our accommodation here. We booked on hostelworld.com but it ended up being more of an Airbnb as it was the only room as part of the “Pension”. We stayed 2 doors down from one of the canals in an artsy neighborhood called Jordaan. Our first night we had a traditional 3 course Dutch meal consisting of Pea Soup, HotchPotch (potatoes and vegetables and meat on the side), and a chocolate dessert. We were stuffed.
The next day we woke up saying we could live here as the sun was shining and it was 80 degrees. We did a bike tour around the city, went to an “Ice bar” and walked around the red light district which was unlike anything I had ever seen before. I knew it existed but didn’t really know what to expect. There were tons of streets with windows with girls in them dressed provocatively, some of whom looked super young. Our tour guide told us people literally go “window shopping” for what they like and they have specific streets with “fat girls, Barbie girls, old ladies, and Latinas” to name a few. We also learned that the red light district actually makes the city safer for women at night because all the guys go to the red light district if they need to “get some”. The next day it poured rain which we were told is the normal here, even in the summer. They only get a handful of nice summer like days, so when they do everyone goes outside to enjoy the weather. We retracted our statements that we wanted to live here even though the city itself was great, rain is a foreign concept to us SoCal people.
One favorite of ours was the Anne Frank House and Museum. Which was especially emotional for me as a Jewish female and since we both read her diary when we were younger. However, you don’t have to be Jewish to be appalled by the stories of the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust. A bit of dark history for the Dutch, we learned that only about 5,000 out of the 80,000 (don’t quote us on the numbers) of the Jews living in Amsterdam survived the Holocaust. Other European countries occupied by Germany had a higher percentage of survival. In general, the Dutch complied with the Germans during this time (not to say that there was no resistance, the Franks hid for two years thanks to Dutch nationals). After leaving the Anne Frank museum you can’t help but wonder how many other similar stories during the Holocaust were never told and lost in time.
We also visited the Amsterdam museum, Vondelpark (beautiful park in the city which was home to thousands of hippies years ago), floating flower market, Westerkerk tower/church, canal boat tour, and we ate very well! The food here was very diverse and we were told around 180 different nationalities live in Amsterdam. We had a daily cappuccino at different cafes around the city as well as several Heineken beers. It’s interesting to note, “coffee shops” are the ones that sell weed. If you’re looking for coffee or beer, then you go to a cafe. Overall, Amsterdam is a lively city and the culture is very open and free. The first gay marriage was actually performed here in 2001, way ahead of the US. There is also the idea of “personal responsibility” here. So if you get drunk and decide to pee in the canal but accidentally fall in you can’t sue the city because there were no guard rails. You don’t need a permit or anything to have a wedding reception in Vondelpark as long as you clean up the mess you made. You can smoke weed in public, lay naked at the park, take a swim in the canals, etc. As long as you’re not rudely disturbing others or being violent you won’t get into trouble.
We were sad to leave the Amsterdam charm and way of life but I’m sure we’ll be back.
On to Berlin!