Amsterdam--Avidan

Hello all.

This is my first post ever. Blogging is new for me. When I was in Israel I worked on a website updating it and adding articles. That was a bit of blogging. You can check out that at www.green.org.il/eng/

Anyway, after working and living in Tel Aviv, my flight home to Toronto had me stop in Amsterdam for 5 days. I don’t have any pictures as I didn’t have a camera at the time but I have some fun experiences to talk about.

Amsterdam has a reputation for drugs and prostitution; the “free” city (if not country) where you can do whatever you want. This reputation is both somewhat untrue and debilitating in the eyes of the government who is in the process of buying up the Red Light district windows and turning them into windows for artist to display their art. They have also begun to restrict any new Coffeeshops from opening and cancelling licences to coffeeshops that break any rules. This is all in an attempt to improve Amsterdam’s reputation in the eyes of a certain demographic. While the government is doing this, Amsterdam is filled with tourists. I went during the low season (winter) and there were still many tourists.

From talking to people, anyone who hasn’t been to Amsterdam doesn’t understand the Red Light District. This is an area of Amsterdam comprised of many blocks and alleyways. On ground level, there are lines of windows. These windows are more like doors. Inside these windows are girls dressed in bikinis on display with a red light shining from behind. Most of the time they are just standing and often smiling but sometimes they will bang on the windows to get your attention or make eye contact and gesture for you to go to the window. If a curtain is closed they are working (or not there). If there is a blue light in the window then the person in the window either used to be a man or is a man. Areas are also sorted into preference. This means that older women are in a different area from Asian women or the bigger women. Any kind of fantasy is available but you certainly will have to pay more. The girls are checked regularly, practice safe sex, and are all business. There are also many cameras in the area so that the girls are kept safe and don’t try to take a picture. Your camera might be destroyed. You have 15 minutes to do your thing but most people don’t make it. After all, the girls are professionals.

The coffeeshops are interesting. They have their own set of strict rules. Firstly, marijuana is not legal in Amsterdam. It is decriminalized to carry up to 5 grams of marijuana on your person for personal use meaning not in public (unless you are smoking on a coffeeshop patio). This also means that trafficking is illegal. You may be wondering how coffeeshops are able to get their marijuana if it is illegal to grow and sell it. This is the ridiculousness of the whole situation. It is illegal but no one is going to stop you from doing either. No coffeeshop will admit they buy any from anywhere, “it just turns up on my back step”. They still have rules about how much a coffeeshop can have on its premise even though it couldn’t have possibly have gotten that amount of marijuana legally.
Next, you are not allowed to drink alcohol in a coffeeshop. Makes sense, I guess. You are also not allowed to smoke cigarettes in any establishment in Amsterdam. This INCLUDES coffeeshops. One could be in a coffeeshop, smoking marijuana and your friend would have to leave and go outside if he/she wanted to smoke a cigarette.

We are not done yet. Some coffeeshops have two parts to them. One is a “normal” bar and the other the coffeeshop where they sell marijuana. You are allowed to smoke marijuana in these bars. This gets around the loophole of not being able to smoke and drink in the same place. One can go to the coffeeshop, buy marijuana and sit at the bar.

That concludes the drug and prostitute portion of this post.

Amsterdam is a great city. The city centre is compact with trams and buses available to take you most anywhere. The service is extremely good compared to Toronto. There are also about 500,000 bikes in Amsterdam and about 50,000 bike thefts a year. The infrastructure for bikes is amazing in Amsterdam. 40% of the trips taking anywhere are taken by bike. This is not just in Amsterdam but the entire Netherlands. This is how our cities should be modeled. They should be build for people and bikes, not cars.

As you may know already, I am pushing hard for change when it comes to the environment. Amsterdam is a great example of how our cities should be planned to minimize cars and maximize efficiency.

I spent a good portion of my time wondering around the city with my very informative friend from Vancouver who has been living there for 3 years already. I did the three main museums in the city. The Van Gogh museum was amazing as it followed the life of Van Gogh. The Rijksmuseum was boring for me. It had a lot of Rembrandt pieces which, to me, are not very interesting. The final of the three was the Anne Frank House. This was a nice little museum but it was a bit too touristy and modern looking for my liking. I also went on a very informative free tour of Amsterdam. The company is called New Amsterdam and they have free tours all over Europe.

If you have any questions about Amsterdam, I did go to other attractions too. Five days is probably enough time to spend there.

Avidan