As most of the handful of people who actually read this have probably heard. I was not a fan of Amsterdam. It was like one giant beach boardwalk filled with prostitutes and weird weird weird people on lots of drugs (example: neighbors in the hostel barking like dogs at 3 pm one afternoon). I guess that combination of things might appeal to some but it just felt so...gross.
It honestly felt like they were trying to make it feel as skeevy as possible. The Amsterdam police station was adjacent to our hostel (which was in the red light district) and there was a constant police presence everywhere you went. We met up with Raviv's friend Idan one night and he informed us that it's actually a really safe place. There's thousands and thousands of security cameras all over the place and the crowds are filled with undercover cops in addition to the ones in uniform.
I dunno...I could see it as a place that would be fun for a day or two. But no more. Four was way too much and we moved our trip to London up by one day. One thing I did enjoy was meeting some nice people at the hostel. We had a couple of great guys in our room that were fun to talk to and were normal and not creepy or sketchy. I honestly didn't run into one rude person while I was there. Everyone was very friendly and curious about where we were from and what we were doing there.
So anyway...we did managed to see a few cool buildings while we were there:
-the Nemo Center
-Amsterdam Public Library (personal favorite...had great lighting conditions and was overall just a really well done library)
-the Music Center (can't remember the name of this one)...we managed to get a tour of the concert hall while the performer for the evening was practicing...it was really cool
-Arcam center
-ING building
-Orphanage that has been transformed into a series of offices (they built the orphanage to children's proportions...was very interesting)
Anyway...I'm glad I went but I don't think I will be traveling back.
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