Some Amsterdam Impressions

Took a lot of pictures today but a little too tired, sore and sunburned to do more than pull them off the camera. So I thought instead I'd ramble on a bit about my impressions of Amsterdam.

You only really need three colors to describe Amsterdam: brown, green and gray - unless the sun is out, like it was today. Virtually all the buildings in much of the city are brick or stone, and usually brown brick at that. Oh, there's all sorts of trims and accents, but they tend to be in shades of cream, beige or occasionally black - and when you see a real exception, such as some old 17-century warehouses with doors painted purple, it really stands out. Even most of the streets are brick-paved - brown bricks, naturally.

But it's every shade of brown imaginable, at least when one considers the city as a whole. The section I'm staying & working in - Oid Zuid, or Old South - was originally a neighborhood created for the well-to do merchants and traders. It actually contains a few stand-alone houses - clustered closely together, natch - and a few of the street names (like the one my hotel is on) contain "-plantsofen", or "-plantation". But virtually all the buildings in a given swath of several blocks (barring the occasional rehabilitated site) will be the same uniform scheme. Somehow it doesn't have the same fingernails-on-chalkboard aesthetic sense that cookie-cutter suburban communities have back home; I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's due to my sensibilities and expectations; one expects to see large numbers of generally similar buildings close together in the city, but I grew up in neighborhoods built during the prime post-WWII suburban expansion years, and the residents had time to personalize them considerably by the time I came along.

Green finds its way into many places: the canals, the strips of parkland, the green trees that grace the streets of Old South and a few other places, the green-painted metal rails on many of the bridges. The city isn't as green as tiny Luxembourg, set admidst its lush river valleys. But it certainly feels more green than any American city of comprable size (750K people) I've visited recently, with the exception of Boston, which being a colonial city still has a very European feel. It feels more green than Paris. I suspect if I weren't staying in Oid Zuid in a hotel next to a long strip-park I might feel differently, since starting and ending my day walking beneath the trees must make some sort of impression. (But it felt pretty green on the bus from the airport, too.)

(And now that I think of it, the color that I'd used to describe Paris is white. Not the people certainly, but so many buildings built during the Hauptmann era, the gypsum soil - it almost feels oppressive in some parts of the city.)

Gray pops up from time to time, usually in concrete or granite trim, the supports of a bridge, the usually gray sky.

Bicycles are everywhere, and people use them for everything. Many families don't seem to have a car, they have a family bike on which mom or dad carts the children - in specialized baby seats, in wooden boxes affixed to the handlebars, riding side-saddle on the little flat cargo space behind the seat. I've seen people texting, talking on the phone, carrying their groceries, you name it! Most seem to have only a few speeds and are built very sturdily - but then these are made for commuting in a city where the only real elevation changes one encounters will be canal bridges, or the occasional ramp from the street onto a portion of sidewalk devoted to the bike path. And when they're not riding the, Amsterdamers are locking their bikes to whatever is handy. There's countless bike racks but I've also seen them secured to fences, trees and signposts. Cant think of any locked to a bench, though - those must be off-limits.

Bikes have right-of way, even over pedestrians and cars except for a few circumstances. There are dedicated bike lanes all over the place, and it definitely seems possible one could get just about anywhere in the city by bike. (If my knees were up to pedalling my obese butt around, I'd have used one today.)

Like any large city it's both ethnically and economically diverse. At the Albert Cuypstraat market this morning I saw quite a mix of people, and I don't mean just the generally Caucasian tourists (incredibly easy to spot for the most part, not like I'm not by my size or the first time I open my mouth). Holland's history as a trading nation with possessions in East Asia means there's quite a few people from that part of the world here, as well as blacks. More than a few Moslem women who's ultimate ethnicity I couldn't place as well.

Speaking of the market: besides the usual tourist kitsch one expects in these, there were a large number of stands that obviously cater to the locals. There were six or seven cheese shops, several seafood stalls, meats, numerous produce vendors - sandwhiched between cheesy t-shirts and cheap plastic toys. A number of second-hand clothing stands with things that actually looked decent and substantial.

Much later in the day I found myself needing to cut through part of the infamous "Red Light District". It really only covers a few blocks, though there are other smaller zones throughout the city I'm told. I didn't see anything racier than a few stores selling erotic items as I cut through on my way to Nieumarkt.

What I did encounter there, but also in the Jordaan neighborhood and in a few other places, was the unmistakable smell of pot. In Amsterdam, a "coffeeshop" is a place where one can buy and consume the legal soft drugs, and they're not solely confined to the red light district. Since I also caught whiffs while passing through some purely residential areas (when I'm traveling solo, especially in a generally safe city like Amsterdam, I'll pop off the main drags if my maps and bearings are good enough - wouldn't try this in Hong Kong) I guess it's legal to smoke at home too, which a few people were doing out on their stoops.

I love being in a city with real, working mass transit. Virtually everyone who's not on a bike uses the electric trams at some point. I'm told the tram network connects pretty seamlessly to the train system as well; since the major train stations are also served by several tram lines each it seems reasonable. Haven't had to step onto the busses yet.

The only people I've met who don't speak excellent English (albeit accented sometimes) are foreign visitors. I took a canal boat tour this afternoon and sat with a French couple, with whom I was able to communicate just a bit. (Quite a few "Je nes comprenz pas" on my part.) However, English is definitely the default second tongue of everyone I've encountered who has one - Germans, Lativians, Japanese that I've recognized (and some probable Russians, but I'm not sure - definitely Slavic-sounding.)

Sidebar #1 - the Latvians were three women who got off at my tram stop after my expedition who asked for help with directions. They had a copy of the really excellent map provided by the tourist bureau (I have one also) and after a few moments I was able to get them sorted out and sketched out how to get to their destination from the intersection we were at. They asked where I was from and were surprised that I was an American - they said "Your English is like the King's English!" I wished them bon voyage, which may have confused them further. :)

Sidebar #2 - When talking with the French couple, I couldn't find ways to say things in French but could remember how to do so in German. Frau Reuter and Frau Middlebrook would be proud that their lessons have stuck after 30 years!

Sidebar #3 - The Dutch speak English so well that I'm not even packing my Dutch phrasebook anymore. It may be different with the older people, and perhaps when I'm in Nijmegen & Arnhem next week, but all the Dutch I've encountered speak such good English that I'm embarrassed to yank out more than "Dag!" or "Gut avend".

And it's after 11 PM, so time to start winding down. Today was walking and shopping (Saturday and Thursdays are the days to shop in Europe); if I hold up, tomorrow is museum day.