Things I learned in Amsterdam

[bjarvis]

• I knew pot is legal & accepted here. I learned the downtown at night smells like San Francisco, but without the urine.
  
  
• I new there were trams (streetcars). Now I know the basic fare is 3 euros, and there are sales booths on most if not all trams. One badges in & out with each ride, as one does on most transit systems I’ve visited.
  
  
• I knew this was a bike-friendly city and there were lots of bikes. I didn’t know there were untold billions of them everywhere, and that the bike lanes can be shared with motorcycles, scooters and these weird tiny cars/utility vehicles which remind me of Bangalore.
  
  
• I knew there were canals, but I didn’t know they were more for show than for use. I thought there would be more public transit-style water taxis, but outside of tour boats, houseboats and occasionally a rowing team or squad of kayakers, the inner city canals seem to be mostly for show & tourism.
  
  
• This is a Coca-Cola town. You have to look hard to find Pepsi.
  
  
• It is shockingly easy to find Hershey products here. I had expected better of Amsterdam, if not the Netherlands. My theory is that prolonged pot use has dulled their taste.
  
  
• There is a strange obsession here with pancakes. Not that I object, but wow, so many carbs…
  
  
• There is an even stranger obsession here with Argentinian steakhouses. They are more common than Starbucks are in the US.
  
  
• Speaking of carbs, there are no fat people here. At least, the ones I saw are more likely to be tourists. I'm crediting the we-must-bike-everywhere attitude.
  
  
• This city is no place for the disabled. This isn't particular to Amsterdam: a lot of old cities have this problem because it is nearly impossible to make ancient historical buildings accessible to those with disabilities. But wow, I'm amazed how backward Amsterdam is in this regard. Of all the places we've visited the past several days, I think only the Rijksmuseum had a wheelchair-accessible entrance: everywhere else had narrow doors and steps.
  
  
• I'm unsure where Amsterdam stores its elderly. Until we went to the Keukenhof today, the number of people we've see who were older than myself could be counted on one hand. Is there some sort of "Logan's Run" Carousel thing going on here I should know about?
  
  
• All traffic here is trying to kill you. Well, not trying, really, but they will cheerfully run your ass over if you're not careful. There are sidewalks, bike lanes, traffic lanes and sometimes even tram lanes, and you need to look both ways for all of them and be prepared to run like hell. It took me some time to figure out how to do this while preserving my life & dignity, but it's largely to do with timing: I have a lifetime of experience judging the oncoming speed of a car at a glance, but not so much for bicycles. I think I've figured it out though so I'm cheating death for another day.
  
  There are more, but I'll add those as time goes on.

Comments

[kybearfuzz]

This is a fascinating look at the city. I've never been, but I've always wanted to go. I have a couple of friends from Britian/USA that currently live there and I've never heard this from them, but I've never asked.

Be careful crossing those streets handsome :)