I'm afraid Amsterdam attracts the wrong kind of tourists. Believe me, I like to have a good time as much as the next guy and I had a great time in Amsterdam, but there is a certain type of person whose entire goal in life is to party. Some of these people are fun, but many are simply obnoxious. Sloppy people make even sloppier drunks. At the hostel, people were stomping and yelling at 3AM and I saw one guy come down the hall doing the typical post-cocaine sniffling and rubbing of his nostrils. I can't fully describe what made them so obnoxious. You had to be there to understand. It's tragic that such a charming city is tainted by such losers. The large volume of partiers also causes drinks at the local bars to be expensive and allows the clubs to charge steep cover fees. I miss Granada, where I could get a good beer for two Euros and each drink came with a free tapas dish.
Luckily, there were some cool people as well. The first night I was there, I met a great guy from Singapore, Sanjee, and I ended up going out into the countryside with him the next day to see windmills and goats and sample some delicious cheeses. It was great to be in a country where most of the locals were fluent in English. I've had trouble meeting locals in the other countries I visited because of the language barrier, but I met lots of them here. My most memorable conversation was with a homeless guy, a black South African, who told me that he'd been given refuge in Holland during apartheid. After Mandela, this guy's refugee status had been revoked, but he stayed in Amsterdam anyway because he said he was too proud to go back. Even after I talked to him about it, I didn't understand why it would hurt his pride to return to his native land and the whole thing could have been a con. Either way, he had a very sharp mind and I enjoyed talking to him. I also had dinner with my dad's longtime friends, Gerard and Annawiek, one night and stayed at Gerard's house in Rotterdam.
As Gerard put it, "Amsterdam is a museum, Rotterdam is where the work gets done, and Den Haag is where the government is." While the effects of World War II can be seen in Amsterdam, such as the fact that all the trees are the same height because they were cut down and used as firewood and then replanted after the war was over, in Rotterdam the effects are much more obvious. Rotterdam was bombed during the war and therefore much of the city is populated by new architecture, but some portions of the old city remain, standing right next to the new.
Centuries ago, the Netherlands was the world's greatest power. It was the center of trade and its ports bustled with activity. To facilitate delivery of goods from the ports to the city, an extensive system of canals was built and is still active today. Unlike Venice, water is pumped through the canals so that they don't stagnate and stink. Many of the houses in Amsterdam, to this day, have ropes and pulleys attached to their tops to allow goods to be hoisted to the upper floors. The houses even lean forward to keep the goods from banging into the buildings as the rope sways.
There may be more bicycles in Amsterdam than cars. It's hard to say. There are so many bicycles that it makes walking slightly dangerous. As the Dutch say, "The bikers rule the road." and "When you hear the bell, run like hell." Each bike has a bell to announce its presence to pedestrians it is about to overtake. In most areas there are separate biking and walking portions of the sidewalk, but where this isn't the case and a group of bikes overtakes a crowd of pedestrians, a symphony rings out as the riders force there way through.
Before I arrived in the city, I pictured the red light district as a couple of dark streets on the outskirts of town, frequented only by shady characters. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. The red light district is at the center of city. Actually, it's the entire center of the city. Street after street, alley after alley, it is quite extensive. There are two main centers of nightlife in Amsterdam and the red light district is one of them. Everyone goes there and I mean everyone. At night, the streets are packed with people of both sexes and all ages, other than children. Pubs, pizza/kebab/ice cream/coffee(marijuana) shops, hookers, and live sex theaters fill the entire area.
Unlike the city's tolerance policy towards marijuana, the red light district is nothing new. It's been around for hundreds of years. The Old Church, as it's known, is located squarely in the district and most people assume that the church was around first. However, I was told that the church was placed there intentionally to be better positioned to sell indulgences to sailors who felt guilty the morning after. Who knows if that's true, but the point is that the church has been an integral part of the red light district for quite some time.
While prostitution is legal, pimping is not. Each one of the women is in business for herself. She rents a window for an eight hour shift and hopes to make her money back and more. Each window has a red tube light above it and there are so many that I have no idea how all the women stay in business. While the red light district is liveliest at night, prostitution is legal any time of day. A couple of times I was walking in the middle of the day in what seemed to be a normal area, and then suddenly came upon a window with a red light above it and a scantily clad woman behind it.