Rotterdam is not pretty. Not even remotely. Possibly the most interesting thing to see in Rotterdam are these bizarro houses called the 'cube' houses. Someone, somewhere thought, wouldn't it be cool to build houses in the shape of a cube standing on it's point. Clearly, no sane people were nearby to correct this stupid idea and there you have it - Cube houses.
I'd love to tell you more about the place - but that's about all there was to see. I wouldn't put it on my list of must see places before I die... I did meet up with some people and had a great night out at a bar in town. So, at least the people were pretty good value. I also visited a world famous coffee shop - excellent.
Amsterdam on the other hand is very beautiful. There city is covered in these amazing canals. People live on houseboats or live in the small and somewhat dodgy houses throught the city. Actually, the houses are all built on this swampland. Years ago, if you wanted to build a house they would landfill a section with whatever debris they could find - ships, wood, junk, rubbish etc and use that as the 'land' to build upon. They then sunk these huge wooden logs into the newly created 'earth' as a foundation and built a wooden house on top. Now these supports are all rotten and virtually gone and as a result, the houses are all crooked, sinking and flood etc. In Australia, these places would be condemned! The bricks on the houses are all a facade and just bolted onto the wooded frames. If a house gets too unsafe they do this trick called 'seaming' where they just poor concrete between their house and next doors house to make it more stable!
This place is just cool. Imagine a town where sex, prostitution and soft drugs are all tollerated and out in the open. Conservatives will have you believe that this is the decline of civilisation, morally corrupt and a degenerate society but in reality you get one big, free, bohemian society where people tollerate others and is safe to raise your children.
These people have it good. If you stop making a big deal out of something - it just ceases to be an issue. People walk around and it really doesn't matter what they are into. I stayed in the heart of the Red Light district. On Friday night I was out till late drinking some some American girls I met. I walked back to my hostel at 4am without any fears for my safety. You can't really say the same for similar districts in other cities. You would not walk alone there in the middle of the night. Even the dealers of more hard-core drugs (Charlie boys) that stand around in the district are respectful. They are so open about their vices that there is even a school directly opposite the infamous "Window's".
There's heaps to do in Amsterdam. Went to the Anne Frank house, where she and her family went into hiding during the German occupation of The Netherlands. You actually walk through the rooms where they lived - even through the secret bookcase entrance... It was kind of sad.
Everyone in Amsterdam rides bikes. It's totally crazy. Couples on a date ride out for the night. Some dude attending a black tie function was riding there on his bike. Parents pick their children up from school on their bikes. If they have more than one child, they have this big wooden box at the front of their bike that they pile the kids into - crazy! Outside the main train station is a bike rack - the size of a carpark. It has three levels and would easily hold 100,000 bikes - and it is full.
Liked Amsterdam a lot. Would easily live here for a while. You can see the couple of photos I took posted on Flickr.
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