I (heart) Amsterdam
I love Amsterdam. Totally. (repeat ad nauseum, and you might get the idea)
Just got back from 10 days in the Netherlands. Spent a week in Amsterdam, and 3 days in Rotterdam. To preface... this is my first time off the continent. My first time in a culture that isn't (primarily) english-speaking.
Amsterdam is beautiful. Crowded, and dense, and super-populated, AND beautiful. Imagine, if you will, modern-day Manhattan and New Orleans meshed into a utopian hybrid in the 1700's. 3-4 story buildings share walls and were jammed in on every block thru most of the city (like the french quarter), but there were enough trees and canals softening it up that it didn't seem so packed together. The buildings were narrower (15' wide maybe?), and while there were typically businesses on the ground floor, every upper floor looked to be occupied. Narrow streets and raised crosswalks force thoughtful driving, where bicyclists and pedestrians are respected. There are bicycles EVERYWHERE. There's a 3-story bicycles-only parking structure just outside Centraal Station. Every canal guardrail was packed with bikes. Every stair rail or fence, clogged with locked bikes. Fantastic bicycle lanes parallel to most streets. Sigh.
I bounced off a lot of nitwit filters during my time there. American design regulations/guidelines/codes/whatever make everything fairly idiot-proof round here. Not so in Holland. I crossed many a canal via a bridge with NO GUARDRAIL. They feel like if you're dumb enough to fall off the bridge, it's your own damn fault and you can live with the consequences. Stairs are downright treacherous... surefootedness and a slender physique are necessary to reach the restrooms (typically upstairs) in most coffeeshops or pubs. Most of the time, stairs are spiral (or similar), and just about as tight as they can be. I'm not large, but I found it darned diffiuclt to squeeze up some of those staircases. Watching the teeny waitress at Choccolata bound up the stairs and slip into the office (which opened directly onto the far side of the stairwell, meaning she had to step over the void) was very humbling. The average IQ seemed a bit higher, also... Seems to me that by not padding all surfaces and over-explaining things (like we do here to avoid lawsuits) that everyone has had to think in order to survive there, and thusly raised awareness to cope. Does that make any sense?
The food was great. Rephrase... the international food was great. Dutch food kinda sucks. :) We ate mexican, surinamese, thai, indonesian, italian, mid-eastern, british (saved only because we limited that to fish and chips) and dutch food. The Netherlands is a huge agricultural exporter, especially considering the size of the country (~2x New Jersey) and population density ("With only 0.008 % of the world's area, the Netherlands is the world's third largest agricultural exporter after the USA and France..." so sayeth Funfacts about the Netherlands, from the Netherlands Embassy website). There was a staggering array of juices and juice blends to choose from at the grocery store, all of which appeared to be fresh and mostly natural, without preservatives, processing, hormones, genetic alterations, artificial ripening processes, etc etc etc. All the food seemed fresher and less... handled, I suppose, or less processed. More real. The number of greenhouses we saw from the plane as we went home was shocking, but then, with 40 degree weather, I suppose I should have realized the excellent tomatoes on my caprese salad had to come from somewhere. :)
And Rotterdam.... well... Rotterdam was interesting. There was lots of shopping around our hotel area. Malls malls malls malls for like, 8 square blocks. The rest of the buildings were spiffy... quite a contemporary architectural selection of modern structures. Since everything got flattened in WWII, I suppose I'm not surprised. While the buildings were pretty nifty, the urban planning was NOT. Amsterdam is totally logical to navigate through, primarily based on a radial grid (assisted by various vehicles parked and/or abandoned that made useful landmarks) that only breaks down via pedestrian alleyways. Rotterdam was bloody confusing, despite the lack of confusing alleyways. There's no coherent plan that I could see. No method to navigation. The scale was bigger, wider... there were FAR more cars and busy streets, and far fewer pedestrians or bicycles. Then it hailed on us, and sleeted on us, and we stayed in the hotel. Bah.
CraigsList Amsterdam and UnDutchables are my two new favorite websites... Lookin' for apartments and jobs and such. If I could work it out, I'd totally move there ASAP. I love New Orleans, but after one week, I think I love Amsterdam more. I KNOW I like Holland more than the States, despite the monarchy. :) Since the Queen is pretty liberal, and they all apparently understand that if you keep the people happy (cannabis, drinking, sex...), they're less likely to get upset and revolutionary. It seemed very much a culture of personal responsibility and individual awareness. It was lovely.
Sigh.
I miss you Amsterdam.
Just got back from 10 days in the Netherlands. Spent a week in Amsterdam, and 3 days in Rotterdam. To preface... this is my first time off the continent. My first time in a culture that isn't (primarily) english-speaking.
Amsterdam is beautiful. Crowded, and dense, and super-populated, AND beautiful. Imagine, if you will, modern-day Manhattan and New Orleans meshed into a utopian hybrid in the 1700's. 3-4 story buildings share walls and were jammed in on every block thru most of the city (like the french quarter), but there were enough trees and canals softening it up that it didn't seem so packed together. The buildings were narrower (15' wide maybe?), and while there were typically businesses on the ground floor, every upper floor looked to be occupied. Narrow streets and raised crosswalks force thoughtful driving, where bicyclists and pedestrians are respected. There are bicycles EVERYWHERE. There's a 3-story bicycles-only parking structure just outside Centraal Station. Every canal guardrail was packed with bikes. Every stair rail or fence, clogged with locked bikes. Fantastic bicycle lanes parallel to most streets. Sigh.
I bounced off a lot of nitwit filters during my time there. American design regulations/guidelines/codes/whatever make everything fairly idiot-proof round here. Not so in Holland. I crossed many a canal via a bridge with NO GUARDRAIL. They feel like if you're dumb enough to fall off the bridge, it's your own damn fault and you can live with the consequences. Stairs are downright treacherous... surefootedness and a slender physique are necessary to reach the restrooms (typically upstairs) in most coffeeshops or pubs. Most of the time, stairs are spiral (or similar), and just about as tight as they can be. I'm not large, but I found it darned diffiuclt to squeeze up some of those staircases. Watching the teeny waitress at Choccolata bound up the stairs and slip into the office (which opened directly onto the far side of the stairwell, meaning she had to step over the void) was very humbling. The average IQ seemed a bit higher, also... Seems to me that by not padding all surfaces and over-explaining things (like we do here to avoid lawsuits) that everyone has had to think in order to survive there, and thusly raised awareness to cope. Does that make any sense?
The food was great. Rephrase... the international food was great. Dutch food kinda sucks. :) We ate mexican, surinamese, thai, indonesian, italian, mid-eastern, british (saved only because we limited that to fish and chips) and dutch food. The Netherlands is a huge agricultural exporter, especially considering the size of the country (~2x New Jersey) and population density ("With only 0.008 % of the world's area, the Netherlands is the world's third largest agricultural exporter after the USA and France..." so sayeth Funfacts about the Netherlands, from the Netherlands Embassy website). There was a staggering array of juices and juice blends to choose from at the grocery store, all of which appeared to be fresh and mostly natural, without preservatives, processing, hormones, genetic alterations, artificial ripening processes, etc etc etc. All the food seemed fresher and less... handled, I suppose, or less processed. More real. The number of greenhouses we saw from the plane as we went home was shocking, but then, with 40 degree weather, I suppose I should have realized the excellent tomatoes on my caprese salad had to come from somewhere. :)
And Rotterdam.... well... Rotterdam was interesting. There was lots of shopping around our hotel area. Malls malls malls malls for like, 8 square blocks. The rest of the buildings were spiffy... quite a contemporary architectural selection of modern structures. Since everything got flattened in WWII, I suppose I'm not surprised. While the buildings were pretty nifty, the urban planning was NOT. Amsterdam is totally logical to navigate through, primarily based on a radial grid (assisted by various vehicles parked and/or abandoned that made useful landmarks) that only breaks down via pedestrian alleyways. Rotterdam was bloody confusing, despite the lack of confusing alleyways. There's no coherent plan that I could see. No method to navigation. The scale was bigger, wider... there were FAR more cars and busy streets, and far fewer pedestrians or bicycles. Then it hailed on us, and sleeted on us, and we stayed in the hotel. Bah.
CraigsList Amsterdam and UnDutchables are my two new favorite websites... Lookin' for apartments and jobs and such. If I could work it out, I'd totally move there ASAP. I love New Orleans, but after one week, I think I love Amsterdam more. I KNOW I like Holland more than the States, despite the monarchy. :) Since the Queen is pretty liberal, and they all apparently understand that if you keep the people happy (cannabis, drinking, sex...), they're less likely to get upset and revolutionary. It seemed very much a culture of personal responsibility and individual awareness. It was lovely.
Sigh.
I miss you Amsterdam.