When we arrived at our room in the Hotel Du Lac in Harlemmer Straat, we noticed that quite a few things seemed missing, like the kettle, the hairdryer and bizarrely, one of the saucers of the tea cups. We reported this to the front desk and the man came up to our room with some replacements. Later, I was chatting to the same man at reception and he told me that such things were routinely nicked by the guests. I said, "well I don't suppose they were English, we don't do scummy things like that. What was the name of the previous guests?". He checked, "Yeah, they were called Smith". "Oh", said I. Anyway, I said, we personally definitely wouldn't nick anything. On the contrary, I pointed out that we bring a lot of our own stuff with us. For the record, the most essential thing to take anywhere in the world is tea, preferably Yorkshire Gold because we all need quality refreshment from time to time (brewed in a tea pot btw, which we also brought).