I must admit I knew very little about Amsterdam before arriving there. From what I had gathered via some of my more colorful friends and relatives was it is the sex, drugs, and rock & roll capital of Europe. To my surprise, the first thing I noticed were all the bicycles. Directly across from the train station was the bike parking lot. It was teeming with several thousand bikes and people were pedal-pushing all around us. You also learn very quickly that they have their own lanes between the sidewalks and the streets. We Americans are only taught to look both ways before we cross the street, but in Amsterdam you must do so on the sidewalk as well. We managed to steer clear of cars, but were almost killed on several occasions by bikers.
The second thing I noticed was that nearly all the buildings are very narrow and are built at a slant. If you look upward at the building, it seems as though it’s teetering forward and will crush you at any moment. We later learned this type of architecture was influenced by property taxes. Homes are taxed by their width, so nearly all the houses are as narrow and tall as possible. They are so narrow in fact that you wouldn’t be able to get a piece of furniture up the spiral staircase if your life depended on it – never mind fitting your body up them. They are tilted forward because all the furniture needs to be taken up using a pulley and brought through a window. They lean so the furniture doesn’t bump the building and damage it. I can’t vouch for how safe this type of structure is, but rest assured you’d never see anything like it in the US.
Our walk to our hotel took us past many sidewalk cafes, flower gardens (no tulips, but I guess it was the wrong time for that) and bridges over countless canals. It was hardly the sleaze-fest I was expecting. As you can imagine, we did manage to get into a little trouble, but more on that later.
0 comments:
Post a Comment