A quickie in Amsterdam

I decided that morning it I’ll pop over to Amsterdam and check it out, as I might not be living in Holland for much longer, and it’d be crazy not to have visited the crazy city on my doorstep of 3 months.

First think it strikes you about Amsterdam when arriving on train are the buildings. Fantastic. Now, with the benefit of living in Zuid Holland, my next thoughts were “Why didn’t they do Amsterdam all over Holland, especially in The Hague”?

It’s worth it to see those funny houses and those canals are admittedly romantic, even for a stony and reserved Brit like me.

Next stop was naturally the Red Light district. I almost missed it as I was so engrossed in the buildings and surroundings – ie, busy looking UPwards.

I found the Red Light district all to be rather tame to be honest and a bit small. The only thing I found novel was that it was a “safe” red light – in other words, it doesn’t appear to be as sleazy as some of the more unsavoury red lights around the world. Sorry, it didn’t impress me and I ended up feeling sorry for the girls after the novelty wore off on the “friendly” red light district. Afterwards, I read a Newsweek magazine, a lot of them are forced into it, despite it being all monitored and legal. Not good.