Amster...what?

In January this year I was fortunate to visit a good friend in, what I like to call the most amazing city in the world; Amsterdam. Yes it is everything you heard about it and yet so much more. Yes, you smell the marijuana walking past some coffee shops, yes, you can find the girls in their redlight windows and yes, and you see people with their retrospective lifestyles. BUT..I have to say, if that is all you found in Amsterdam, you missed a great lot of it!

To me Amsterdam is like playing a compilation album, on every track you take there is something new to be found. Always something new mixed with a little bit of the old or visa versa. Then to me, there is also the advantage of understanding the language, since my mother tongue is Afrikaans. This opens up a completely new world, which I could not find in any other European city. An experience of being home, except this home is completely different from the one I am used to.

I think as a tourist the best way to see the city is by foot. While there, Sophie (the good friend) and I did about a 100km on foot. Walking just everywhere and visiting what ever was on my whish list. Highlights were the Rijksmuseum, a Sunday concert in Het Conzertgebou and going by boat on the channels or gragte as they call it. Anne Frank museum was an absolute disappointment, but the story of her and the families live, as well as those of all the rest of the Jews, still is heart touching. Therefore I cannot remove it from the to do list. However, I would suggest that you first watch the movie Freedom Writers just to create some sort of sentiment for the whole story in you mind.

Well, that is the short, this and that of Amsterdam, hope you will get a chance to visit it someday