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| Amsterdam was the first European destination for Adam and I. Our hotel was clean but decidedly non-luxurious. Our room was located on the third floor; to get there you had to climb a 45-degree staircase with steps about 6-7 inches deep (not even enough room to place your whole foot - apparently that's common in Amsterdam). After checking in, we hung out in the room for a couple of hours to recover from jet lag and watched Baywatch dubbed into Dutch with English subtitles. We spent a couple of days wandering around the city - visited the Rijksmuseum and saw several Rembrandt paintings, wandered through the red light district where they had girls on display in the windows, and generally just tried to avoid the bicycles, garbage and dog poop all over the streets. The bicycle is the primary mode of transport for locals, and there are an innumerable amount of virtually identical single-speed bicycles everywhere you look in Amsterdam. And if you're not careful, they run into you (I know!). I was amazed by the amount of garbage on the streets. It was like people put their trash out for pick-up, but the garbage men never come. I suppose the garbage does eventually get picked up, but it makes for a messy, somewhat smelly city in the meantime. And the smoking! It seems like *everyone* smokes *everywhere*. I realize smoking is much more socially acceptable in Europe than it is, oh, say here in California, but you just can't get away from it in Amsterdam. Amsterdam seems to be a town full of young people with some nice architecture, a rich cultural heritage and plenty of canals, but it just wasn't able to captivate us. I guess it just didn't have that certain "something". Amsterdam Summary - Almost everyone has a mobile phone, hotels are fairly expensive, other things are reasonably priced. |
 The Rijksmuseum |
 There was garbage all over |
