Amsterdam - Notes
Last Updated: October 6, 1999
These are some notes on miscellaneous topics that I thought
didn't warrant a separate page.
Canal Parade
There was a canal parade that went by where I live,
sponsered by Gay Amsterdam Business. It was
very colorful. Sorry, no pictures: I video taped it
instead.
Dogs
A fair number of dogs, but they don't bark, they don't come
up to you, they pretty much just stay out of your way and
otherwise ignore you. Alas, owners don't clean up after
their dogs, but it's not as bad as I'd been led to believe.
Marijuana
A lot of it is smoked here; it's common to smell it on the
streets. Although technically illegal (so the guidebooks
say), they don't charge anyone for
possession of small amounts. And "coffeehouses" supposedly
sell it. You will see stores that sell marijuana related
stuff.
I also saw Cannibus seeds (or plants or whatever)
for sale at the flower market. Don't try to take any of
this stuff out of the country: it's undoubtably illegal
wherever else you go. I briefly thought about buying
some to grow here, but I don't use it, and I didn't
want to risk any getting mixed in with my stuff
when I return to Canada.
Smoking
Lots of people smoke cigarettes here. I can't remember
being in a smoking building before, so it was
distressing to me. My office-mate didn't smoke, but
when you walked in the hall it reeked of cigarette
smoke, and if you left your office door open, it
wasn't long until the stench permeated the air.
Later I moved to another office and I kept the door
closed to keep the smoke out.
Tourism
Amsterdam is a tourist town. I didn't notice it at first, with
everything being new. But after being here a week, I found the
tourists tiring. It's especially bad for me, living close to
Centraal Station. Further, if I want a bite to eat, etc., then
I usually have to go to a main tourist area.
Around mid-May, the tourist season picked up. I saw horse
drawn buggies and bicycle tour groups, neither of which I
had seen in early May. And more people.
Garbage
Garbage is set out on the streets for pickup. That's fine, and
what you'd expect of a big city. The problem for me is that
one of the two pickups per week for my building is on Monday.
And it appears that a lot
of students go away for the weekend, so they set they're
garbage out mid-day on Friday and it sits there in the doorway
for 3 days.
Worse, there was a garbage strike in late May. The garbage
really begins to pile up. Yuck! It was a planned week long
strike, and it began to smell towards the end of the week.
Chickens
There are lots of chickens running loose in Amsterdam! None
that I've noticed downtown, but some not too far from the
Maritime museum. I even saw a cock-fight one day as I rode
by on my bicycle. It wasn't a staged fight; it's was just
two rooster's trying to rip each other to shreds.
Herrons
Lots of Herron's, too. I disproved my theory of there
only being 2 herron's in the world (that was the most
I'd seen at one time before I came to Amsterdam):
here I saw sixteen at once! And on the train,
I once saw 8+ herrons sitting in a row on the wall
beside the track.
Squee-Gee Kids
I've seen one. Only he wasn't a kid; he looked about 40 years
old. The car turned on the windshield wipers to drive him
away.
Phones
They use phone cards here with an electronic chip in them.
You can buy them at various places, including smoke shops.
If you're here for a week with a group and need to keep in
touch, consider getting cellphones from Dutchphone. When I
was here they were selling for 99G, with 85G worth of credit
for calls (.90 per minute daytime, .50 per minute night).
However, I got mine from KPN since it had wider coverage
and I wanted it when I biked out of town.
For some reason, Germany and The Netherlands got their
act together and use a common phone card system.
Alas, France and Britain have their own phone card
systems. I used the one in France; Britain had two
when I was there, and I never used either one.
You can also buy long distance phone cards, ones where
you call a toll-free number and then place a long distance
call. I used some of these until I got my telephone.
My sister gave me some Staples phone cards toll-free numbers
to call through-out the world for use out of the US.
Alas, the toll-free numbers didn't work in The Netherlands or
the UK, so I was unable to use the phone cards.
Construction
They did an incredible amount of work on the streets in May
and June, and some work on the canals. Leo told me that the
street work was more than usual because the plan is to build
a subway/tram/something line in northern Amsterdam over the
next couple of years, so they're fixing all they can of
the streets now with the expectation that they'll do minimal
road repair for two years.
There was also a lot of work being done on the canal houses.
Leo told me this was normal. It's too rainy most of the
year, so from May-September everyone tries to get the work
done at the same time. It's tricky because even in these
months the rain will interrupt repair work. In any case,
when they work on a canal house they build a scaffold on
the sidewalk in front of the house, blocking the way to
pedestrians.
Ice Cream
Europe lags North America in quality ice
cream (at least in my fairly limited experience). The
best ice cream I found in Amsterdam was at Ben&Jerry's
and at Haagen-Dazs. On the other hand, Europe has
good sorbets. Thus, when I wanted a good chocolate
ice cream, I head for Ben&Jerry's and get New York
Super Fudge Chunk. But if I wanted something lighter,
I'd go to a local shop and get a fruit sorbet.
Eventually I started buying ice cream from Austrialian
Ice Cream. I'd get their Belgium Chocolate. I preferred
the flavor of Ben&Jerry's or Haagen-Dazs chocolate, but
I liked the softer texture of Austrialian.
However, I lucked out in one big way. Leo and Phyllis have
a Donvier Ice Cream maker, and Phyllis made delicious
ice cream when I went to their house for dinner. I can't
imagine there are that many home ice cream machines in
Amsterdam, especially since Leo and Phyllis had to hunt
for a refrigerator with a freezer big enough to hold the
Donvier bucket.