Usually, after a vacation, I’ve had my fill and am ready to come home to New York. After spending a week in Amsterdam with a lifelong friend, however, I wanted nothing more than to miss my flight home, live out of my suitcase, learn Dutch, and get a job there. Seriously.
Well, maybe I wouldn’t bother learning Dutch, since every Dutch person I met over the course of a week spoke better English than I did, usually in addition to two or three other languages. It was uncanny. The guy working at the checkout counter in a supermarket spoke fluent Dutch, English, Spanish, French, Italian, and Indonesian. Crikey. Yet I never once felt like a stupid American, as I had in France the week before as I struggled to order “un verre d’eau.” The Dutch people I met all had an unbelievably friendly, relaxed demeanor. Here’s an example. My friend Mike and I were sitting in a pizzeria right off Rembrantplein one evening, wondering about a club we’d heard about called Jimmy Woo’s. Sitting with his back to me was a youngish guy with three very attractive girls, all of whom were in the vicinity of six feet tall. I turned around and asked the guy if he knew where Jimmy Woo’s was, partly because I actually wanted to know, but mostly hoping to start talking to his female friends. I’m from New York, so I expected him to perceive me as a threat and at the very most give me a vague, one-sentence answer. I couldn’t have been farther off in my estimation. He thought for a moment, apologized profusely for not knowing, then turned around to the girls to see if they knew. They didn’t seem to be sure. The guy then proceeded to call his friend to ask him where the club was. After a few minutes on the phone, he told me that Jimmy Woo’s was right off the Leidseplein, a massive square lined with bars and outdoor cafes that is arguably the center of nightlife in Amsterdam. Thanks, guy! We encountered this sort of friendly helpfulness all week, particularly when asking directions.
So what does Amsterdam have going for it, other than a wealth of tremendously friendly, tall, blonde, great-looking, multilingual people? I’m glad you asked. First of all, the city is beautiful. Narrow, three-to-four-story townhouses topped with steep Dutch gables line most of the streets in the city center. An interesting feature of nearly every building is a cantilevered arm sticking out of the front facade, just above a window on the top story. As it turns out, these arms used to have pulleys attached to them
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