Amsterdam
In 2007 Garth and I planned a trip to visit Norway, which was the main stop on our trip to Europe. We went through many flight options in order to get there but the one that was the easiest was to go via Amsterdam.
Excitement got the better of us and as a result, suffered from extreme jet lag we were up quite early the first morning. So we got to see the city while the visitors slept and the locals were out and about doing their thing, commuting to work on their bikes and getting coffee.
To my surprise the mixture of old and new architecture that juxtapose but compliment one another, street art is absolutely everywhere and of course loads of bicycles. Your average tourist might expect to see the more well known parts of the city such as the ladies in the windows of red light district and cafes where you can easily buy a splif and relax, but to me these things didn’t seem that important to the people of the city. They are there of course but not hidden and as a result become part of the furniture, something that is there but not really noticed.
