TEN AMSTERDAM-ISH OBSERVATIONS

10. RUBBISH - I don't know what it is about cities with canals... Just like Venice, Amsterdam suffers from a lack of bins and people to frequently empty said bins. As a result there's a lot of wrappers and empty bottles and cigarette butts in the street.

9. RANDOMNESS - The city is pretty random. There is a pattern to the development, but the buildings themselves are random, often very narrow, and at varying angles and leans. Maybe a lot of the builders in the city are stoned.

8. DUTCH - The language. It seems relatively easy to pick up. It's like a chilled version of German with a fair bit of English thrown in to avoid the over the top German-ness. Kinda like if Jamaicans were European.

7. SEX - It's celebrated here in a way I've never seen. It's as regular a topic as gardening or football would be back home, and it gets similar allowances / exposure (pun intended). There's a 24 hour free-to-air porn channel, and you're allowed to have sex in public places after sunset. Oh yeah, and then there's the Red Light District of course. Nuff said.

6. CHILLAX - Amsterdam is a very relaxed place, very hippy-like. A key reason for this is the fact that after the Nazi occupation during WWII, the city was recolonized largely by the hippies (and parents of) of the 1960's. As long as you're not bothering anyone you could pretty much get away with anything here.

5. WEED - there are a bunch of token laws in place to control this, but effectively if you wanted to you could go sit in the park with your mates smoking joints. Legally. I didn't really notice many stoned people around the place, but definantly smelt it regularly in the city and saw plenty of people smoking it casually, or indeed consuming baked goods that were made with a key additive.

4. HEINEKEN - one of the best and biggest beers in the world. It tastes best in Amsterdam, straight out of the tap. Much like the best German beers - simple (4 ingredients), pure, and very tasty. Yum. The version that we get in Australia is inferior.

3. BOATS - I didn't realise that there were so many canals in Amsterdam. There's a lot, apparently it's the most 'watery' city in the world. That means there's a lot of water-craft about. We had dinner at a floating restaurant, our hotel (Botel) was a boat, people live in private boats in the canals, and there are also regular boats, for regular boating activites. There's a lot of boats.

2. HOOKERS - With the attitude towards sex here, it's a hookers paradise. Kind of like the 90's movie 'Gangsters Paradise' but instead of Michelle Pfeiffer wearing regular clothes, imagine her wearing very little, and occupying multiple bodies. Also, there's less Americans, and instead of Coolio you get Bob Marley. Other than those differences, it's exactly the same situation. Where was I?

Oh yeah, walking through the red light district you see Michelle Pfeiffers everywhere, mostly in shop windows scantily-clad. They don't like it if you give them a wink and a cheeky smile and a wave when you're holding hands with your wife. Funny stuff.

1. PUSHBIKES - Imagine a large car park, but instead of cars that whole area is crammed with bikes, stacked a couple high. Now imagine more bikes. I reckon that's how many bikes each person owns in Amsterdam. It is out of control, and bikes have the right of way on the roads. Pedestrians have to be on alert, we almost got hit by a few bikes. Pretty sure they target tourists just for fun... and cos of the weed.

It is a good solution for getting around (bikes), it's the fastest and easiest way to get around the city, and I reckon there will be other cities that end up like this as more and more places become overpopulated. It is a massive eye-opener though.