Friday 30 April 2010

11 reasons to go to Amsterdam

1. The obvious. Legal everything!







































2. Biking. It was nice to get away from cars and honking lorries and buses and see, instead, multi-storey car parks only for bikes, and trams and people flitting about carrying everything they can on their bike. You can whizz to febo, pick a little something up from a coffeeshop and be back home in just a couple of minutes.



 Yikes, just look at all those bikes!








European style.






















3. Febo and Vlaamse frites and chocolate waffles and pancakes and XXL muffins and noodle bars and sushi bars and burger bars and the best coffees and the best hidden away restaurants and pizzas bigger than your head and stores full of cereals and sweets that haven't been in England, maybe ever and strawberry and pear and mango and lychee and peach juices and meat and cheese breakfasts!

































































4. For those keen on architecture, Amsterdam is the perfect place to go. There's tall houses, small houses, houses as wide as mouses' houses, wonky houses, glass houses and slanty, leaning, bendy houses and they do bridges too.







































































































5. To get lost. If you just like to roam around, potter about into new places and have no care where you go, Amsterdam is ideal. Every canal looks the same and every canal has a bridge that looks the same that leads you across to more canals and bridges that look just the same as the ones that looked the same as the ones that looked the same before them! And then in between you'll bump into parks and markets and locals sending you off to more of, you know, just the same. Perfect!














 Complimentary clogs photo.











































































6. I may be a girl but it's just a coincidence I like pretty things. I know boys like pretty things too. Amsterdam doesn't get much prettier. Flying in to Schiphol airport and all you'll see is blue skies, green fields split up by little canals that turn into bigger canals and the city, itself is just a maze of naughty and nice. You know what the naughty is and then in between are narrow little alley ways and the pink, blue and yellowy hues of long, lean houses, split up by dark, wooden houses, split up by houses that lean so far over the pavement you can wave into the top windows..almost. The whole look reminds me of some kind of toyland. The buildings look like carved doll houses and each store is guaranteed to sell something you've not seen that big, ever. Just go, already!







































7. The usual touristy bits..Anne Frank's hiding place, the Van Gogh museum, NeMo [the science centre], the smallest house in Amsterdam, the oldest house in Amsterdam, the hemp museum, the sex museum, the erotic museum, the torture museum, the condom museum, the Amsterdam historical museum, the WW2 resistance museum, the Jewish historical museum, the maritime museum, the museum of museums...

The not so secret bookcase leading up to Anne Frank and her family's hiding place.

















 NeMo










 8. Queen's Day. I heard everyone goes a bit crazy on Queen's Day and crazy in Amsterdam is the best kind. Legal everything [pretty much], remember.


























































Queen!















9. Boats! Not only is there a pancake buffet boat but you can go on pedalos and hire out a row boat for just 10 euros for the day, taking all the booze and those bad cigarettes and spacey picnics you want. There's boat tours and glass-bottomed boats and speed boats for hire too.























































10. Markets and thrift stores and flea markets. The anti-Oxford Street..no two clothes stores are the same. All the locals look easy breezy and that ethereal kinda cool and that's because they get high to shop in Amsterdam.









































































11. Friday night roller skating club!












 Sticks for extra whizz!

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