We arrived into Amsterdam late yesterday afternoon and got ourselves checked in. I was able to find a room that could take the 5 of us; it has absolutely 0 creature comforts, but it is right now in the central part of town, putting us within walking distance of everything we wanted to see and do. The TV here has only one channel – the Disney channel in Dutch. This has forced us to get out and about to keep us from going crazy.

Amsterdam is attractive, but a bit too crowded, fast-paced and frenetic for us. The city (at least the tourist area near the center of town) is full of 20-30 year old kids from all over the world – backpackers, bums, Eurotrash, and everything in between. They wake up and get out around 5pm, sit out all evening smoking and drinking beer in cafes, along the canals and about town. Since it never really seems to get dark here (it sort of dims between 11pm and 3am) I can see how it would be very attractive to party all night long in the clubs, down the streets, on the boats on the water and so forth – and everyone does.

It is a town designed for bicycles and everyone seems to have one. Bicyclers have priority over pedestrians and cars and I’ve found that as someone walking around, it can be rather difficult – there aren’t many sidewalks dedicated to walkers – we usually have to share the roads with bicycles and cars and they are not shy about taking you out if you’re in the way.

All over town are the Coffeeshops (as opposed to the safer “koffiehuis” and cafes) which is code for the dens that serve up all sorts of Marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms and related products. They are all over the place and over the past two days we’ve seen young folks all over town openly smoking joints in and out of doors, and have wandered into outdoor wafts of that identifiable, slightly sweetish smelling cloud.

On the plus side, this city has many young, attractive, blond girls riding around on bikes. This is a not-altogether unpleasant benefit, if you’re into that sort of thing. Even Brenda had to concede that a lot of “models” seemed to be riding all over town for our entertainment. All of the European guys look gay to me – and surely to the girls as well, to my thinking.

One of the interesting ironies of Amsterdam is that the oldest part of town, thick with 500+ year old churches and great stately buildings, is also now home to the famed Red Light District. We wandered over there late this afternoon and, one wrong turn down a few back alleys too many, found ourselves in Gomorrah. Brenda quickened her pace and began scrambling down streets to find a way out of the maze before our kids became a little too worldly for their own good. We passed by gay sex shops and long lines of prostitutes standing behind glass panels, on display for the choosing, while Holden and Isabella argued obliviously about some video game detail that they couldn’t agree on. Josie complained bitterly that she was hungry and wanted dinner, but Brenda wouldn’t have any of it until we had cleared a good 20+ blocks away from that area, much closer to our hotel.

Brenda was thrilled with the quality and quantity of street art available. There are a great number of would-be artists in town and they’re eager to sell their works cheap to make ends meet… Brenda purchase 5 paintings here over two days and can’t wait to get home and find places to show them.

Every corner, bridge and canal is highly photogenic – Amsterdam makes anyone a brilliant photographer. It’s a fun place, with no end of things to see and do, but really is designed around a great nightlife and 20 year old party mentality. We did see families and older folks, but they looked and acted a bit out of place – I sure get the feeling that they would prefer to somehow take back their historied and elegant town, and send the young punks to some other corner of Europe.

 Brenda’s note:  After we left Delft, we went into Amsterdam to spend two nights. Our hotel was right in the middle of the old city center, which is now the party district. Specifically, it’s the gay party district. There were a lot of really faaaaaabulous! dudes wandering around.

I was kind of uncomfortable in Amsterdam just because of the “element” … BUT the place was crawling with artists, so I went nuts again buying art from stoners sitting in Rembrandt Square. I’ve never seen such an abundance of really spectacular art, and they were selling it for practically nothing. If that’s what marijuana does, then bring it on … I’m on board 100%. Whatever it takes for people to produce art that fantastic coupled with the willingness to sell it that cheaply!

I bought three watercolors from a guy who paints in “a style in honor of Rembrandt” — which are realistic landscapes of Amsterdam and absolutely gorgeous. Then I bought another two paintings from a guy that I called The Alice-In-Wonderland Guy; he had two very different styles of paintings and I asked if he did all of them. His English wasn’t very good (and I don’t speak Dutch at all) but I think what he was trying to tell me was that his realistic paintings were ones he did sober, and the weird ones were done while he was on mushrooms. Anyway, I bought two of the psychedelic mushroom paintings. Adam doesn’t like those nearly as well as I do, but I think they are just super, super cool.

The paintings lead to us accidentally blundering into the hooker district. Two of the paintings I bought from the Rembrandt guy are gorgeous views of Amsterdam’s Church of St. Nicholas. I wanted to find the view and get a photo from the same location as the paintings.

That poor church is now smack dab in the middle of the Red Light district. When we realized the area was getting a bit rough, we got semi-lost trying to find our way out. The prostitutes stand in glass doors of their little bedroom places of business and just hang out in their underwear until a customer comes along and picks them. Thank goodness Holden was so busy talking about video games he didn’t notice. Isabella did, but had the maturity not to say anything until we were well out of the area. Josie was hungry and kept whining “Let’s just eat there! I don’t understand why we can’t stop and eat there!” while pointing at the “Coffee Shops” which are actually marijuana bars. We were glad to get out of there.

Brenda bargaining with one of the local street artists. This was the “Rembrandt” guy.

Rembrandt Square. Artists and everyone else hanging out in the parks.

View of the housing near our hotel.

House boats line all of the canals. Those who don’t have any land to plant their gardens get inventive.

Large Starbucks – recently opened. They are trying a “new concept” store, much larger with different serving styles, a higher end coffee bar, different foods, games, tweets to the public when baked goods come out of the oven & etc.

The Bloemenmarkt – a floating Dutch bulb market with all sorts of exotic plants. The internet warns that most are not legally able to enter into the US, despite the assurances of the street vendors.

You see… some seeds and plants are more exotic (and banned) than others.

Anne Frank House

View of the Ann Frank house. It’s the 70’s looking building on the left. They actually saved her house, and then built an entire museum around the thing. I wanted to tour the house this morning, but the lengthy line kept us away. We didn’t go, much to the pleasure of the kids. We did walk over to the Van Gogh museum, which was fantastic if you’re into him, and then to a diamond museum that celebrates Dutch and Amsterdam expertise in the diamond trade since the 1500’s.

In front of the Rijksmuseum.

Strange bird – doesn’t have webbed feet but what look like a series of lily pads on each of its’ toes. We found out later that it’s a coot.

Nicer looking houses along one of the canals.

Brenda and Josie walking back from a stain glass window factory.

Nicer looking houses along one of the canals.

Josie learning the routine from her mama. This was the psychedelic mushroom guy.