Amsterdam

August 18, 2019

Growing up I was always confused with this area of Europe. Is it Holland, Amsterdam, or the Netherlands? Its all of it. The Netherlands is a country, the country is split up into 12 provinces, one of those provinces is North Holland, and within North Holland is the capital of the country Amsterdam. Hope that makes sense.

To say that Amsterdam is unique, is quite an understatement. First of all you can smoke marijuana. As you walk around the streets of Amsterdam, you can smell the weed throughout the city. Second is their promotion of prostitution in the Red Light District. We didn't smoke marijuana nor go to the Red Light District while we were there, save that for the single people.

Now more current issues, Amsterdam wants to be car free in the future. The city is littered with thousands of bikes. The way the city is set up, it is hard to drive a car within the city limits, although we did and Michelle had an adventure. Now they are trying to go cashless, which is rare in Europe since Europe is the cash king. I swear some people don't know how to use the debit machine in the line especially in Germany which tells me they are still new to this technology.

Finally, I want to end with the amount of tourist in the area. I was surprise when I flew from Germany, there was a direct flight from Los Angeles to Amsterdam. This prompted me to think that American tourist love Amsterdam since there was a direct flight. With that being said, there's a huge strain on the city because of too many tourist. On the surface, the streets are trashed. It doesn't look like people are throwing trash on the streets, but the trash cans are full. There are probably not enough labor to keep up with the trash. That is only the eye test.