Amsterdam a city of tolerance...so true!

Feb. 26 2012

So the beginning of my nonstop European adventure began with meeting Megan in London and heading to Amsterdam. The trip there was seamless until we went just a bit to far and ended up in deer country on the train. The trend of having a few directional issues continued but I just see it as opportunity to discover new places. We saw pretty much the entire city by foot in the time we were there as we did tons of walking. This walking included an amazing free walking tour. It may have been one of the best city tours I have been on and it was free (you can't go wrong with that).

Interesting facts we learned along the way:

1.The Dutch keep their blinds open and don't feel the need for privacy. We walked by many apartments that had open curtains and everything was in plain view. Megan loved seeing in the houses she is she is so noisy.

2.  Everyone really does ride a bike. If you leave your bike in the wrong place don’t expect it to be  there when you get back as it will most likely be throw in a canal. A crane pulls out bikes every  day from canals all over the city.

3. The stairs are like climbing a ladder. Steepest stairs ever!!!!

Now that is a lot of bikes

Canals

This is public housing in Amsterdam
is was  pretty amazing!

Need to know where to park your bike?

Wooden Shoes and Tulips, how much more Dutch can you get?

One of many coffee shops we saw around town (aka places to buy and smoke weed)

Most narrow house in Amsterdam.
The man who lives there is taller than his house is wide.

Canals create the lay out for the city

Bikes and Canals, what Amsterdam is all about

You can't go to Amsterdam without experiencing the Anne Frank Museum. I certainly learned more about the treatment of the Jewish during the holocaust than I knew before. Reading the diary of Anne Frank is defiantly on my reading list now. It is amazing the insight and resiliency of a young child in such terrible conditions. It is hard to believe that because of a person's religion a person was made to endure such horrible treatment. I guess this fact fits with almost any maltreatment of another person with no consideration of race, age or religion. What gives someone else the right to harm another human being? How many times in history and in present day will one group of people have the right to harm another group just because they exist? We all know the negative treatment of specific groups happens every day. Will people ever be able to see that all people are the same? I have seen many cultures on my travels and truly we are all the same! Being at the Anne Frank House made me think a lot about what I learned about the Khmer Rouge and the Genocide in Cambodia. When will the negative treatment of people end?    

Amsterdam is really a place like no other. Where else do you smell weed and see an almost naked women in the window walking down the street. We went on a multiple tours and learned about both the sex and weed culture within Amsterdam. Let’s start with the fact that we stayed just outside of the Red Light District our first two nights and in the Red Light district the third night. We were right in the middle of it!! On our tour in the Red Light District we learned that one of the allies was called Tranny Ally (this is a true fact from what we could see). So would you believe our last night we stayed in a hostel on Tranny ally. To make it that much more interesting it was a Christian hostel. What a weird place to put this type of hostel that had Christian music playing and religious pictures all over. Megan and I end up staying there because it was cheap and a little because we wanted to say we stayed on tranny ally.

One fact to remember about Amsterdam is once you step out of the Red Light district Amsterdam is a completely different city. We learned lots about the current laws and rules related to sex workers and weed. Our tour guide talked a lot about the fact that Amsterdam is a place of tolerance. I completely agree as people who live there appear OK with the cultural norms within the city. Each woman in the sex industry must be licensed and pay rent for her window. We were told that the women were like entrepreneurs with their own business but I find it hard to believe that every woman in a window is there by choice. We were told that the base price women have is 50 Euro for 15 minutes, and it cost more for "any extras". The guide that did our tour appeared to normalize the sex culture in the city, but Megan and I struggled with her limited insight into the other side of the story. Whether or not women are choosing to engage in this work , they are still being marginalized by men. We saw many women in windows, young and old. We were told that there are currently about 300 windows throughout Amsterdam, but they may be trying to decrease this number as a way to make the Red Light District more family friendly. Not sure how they can make it family friendly but those were their exact words. I know it is not a place I would want to wander around with my kids. Every time Megan and I walked through the Red Light District we were still stocked and never became desensitized by the culture of that area. We saw a few transactions or attempted transactions. One was a happy man as he was leaving while the others were the sex worker getting mad at men including opening their door to kick the man or through a cup of pee at them (on the tour we were told most women have a cup on hand). The interactions and things I saw while in the Red Light District were unlike any other. There was really sex everywhere from custom condom fitting stores to sex shows.

Provocative sculpture right in the street.

Crazy condom shop

You can get a life time supply of personally fitted condom if you like.

Crazy condoms

This is a window without a women obviously.
Not such a good idea to take a picture with a women,
who know what would happen, but it would not be good. 

I was not aware of this before I arrived but Holland has great cheese. Megan and I did a wine and cheese tasting including learning about how the cheese is made and matured and how to assess and grade cheese. I was actually laughing out loud while Megan was attempting to cut the cheese! I am certainly not a cheese expert now but I will have to test my skills at a wine and cheese party when I get home. After this experience we seemed to see cheese everywhere.

Now we are cheese experts

You can't go to a new country and not try some Authentic food:

Raw herring with onions and pickles- it was pretty good

Not my favourite beer but we had to have some local beer while we were there

Megan loving her pancake

They might be right the pancakes were awesome

How good does that look? YUM

Sprinkles on Bread

 As I write this I am still amazing that it happened. At the end of the walking tour we did on our first day I saw Eva, who I met in Laos and lives in Amsterdam. Who meets someone randomly they met on the other side of the world just walking down the street...me I guess!!! I yelled her name and from there their were lots of hugs. It really is a small world. I had the great privilege to meet up with her twice for during my time in Amsterdam. She took us on a cool walk through some local markets and we had lunch at her apartment with lots of Dutch food. We had a great opportunity to ask her questions and experience real Dutch life. I feel so lucky to have met so many amazing and generous people on my travels. I love the opportunity to interact with locals rather than just being in the tourist culture. I am positive meeting locals has been the best part of my trip. So many amazing learning opportunities have resulted because of these interactions. Thanks Eva for giving us a true Dutch experience!

Cheese Market... so good!

Eva's super cool apartment

Kitchen

What a beautiful city!