Nina and I spent a few days in Amsterdam. These are my thoughts…

*The city is young, in the city center, which is quite vast, youth is served throughout, and only occasional was the sighting of a person over 40 years old.

* The city was and still is rich. Much like London when touring Amsterdam it is easy to see both the stamp of new wealth, in gleaming buildings and fashionable cafes but also the epic scale of colonial power as evidenced by frequent statuary in strange places and colossal city squares bordered by monolithic buildings

* The Red Light District: I found it to be surprisingly clean and presentable considering it is awash in sex and “coffee (read hash) bars”. Transactions were conducted openly and with surprisingly little fanfare, a stark contrast to the consumption of drugs and commercial sex in North America.

Conclusions: I like Amsterdam, it is vibrant (a bit too vibrant around the train station, where crossing the street is a risk of life and limb), very photogenic and a spectacularly easy place to get around in if you know English.

For a visual essay of Amsterdam, click here: http://www.cobalisk.com/content/category/39/1/Amsterdam-2010/

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 14th, 2010 at 4:42 am and is filed under cobalisk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.