Amsterdam

A community portal about Amsterdam with blogs, videos, and photos. According to Wikipedia.org: Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands, lies on the banks of two bodies of water, the IJ bay and the Amstel river. Founded in the late 12th century as a small fishing village on the banks of the Amstel, it is now the largest city in the country and is a financial and cultural centre. As of August 1, 2006, the population of the city proper is 741,329; the population of the official Greater Amsterdam area is approximately 1.5 million, but the real agglomeration is estimated at 2 to 2.5 million. Amsterdam is also one of the core urban centres of the greater metropolitan area called " Randstad " which encompasses other Dutch cities such as Haarlem, Utrecht, Leiden, The Hague and Rotterdam and has a population of over 7.5 million.

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Amsterdam, Netherlands

Written by johnfultz on

From: johnfultz.blogspot.com

Pictures enlarge if you click on them.

Houses on a canal street in Amsterdam

A canal in the middle of Amsterdam.

My first trip to Europe was a business trip that included stops in Amsterdam and Tokyo. At the time I was working for a big four accounting firm. The client was a software company located in San Francisco California's Silicon Valley. My responsibility was to go to the Europe and Asia subsidiaries to look at controls they had in place to ensure that the company was in fact receiving all the royalties they were due for licenses issued. I took one day of vacation and left for the trip one day early so I could enjoy the weekend in Amsterdam.

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Amsterdam houses on a canal street

It was a long flight from San Francisco to my first stop in London. As the plane was approaching London, we were put into a holding pattern over the city for five minutes. As a result, for the first time I could see the city of London; including the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, Tower Bridge, etc. from the air.

On the ground at London Heathrow, I caught a bus to go from one terminal to another. It was my first time to ride in one of the famous London buses and to ride in a vehicle on the left side of the road. Even though I was tired from the long flight, I still enjoyed this short trip between terminals for my first time in Europe.

My next flight was on a British Air flight to Amsterdam. I sat next to an Australian gentleman who was originally from the Netherlands. He and I had an interesting conversation about the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States.

Amsterdam houses on a canal

Another canal in Amsterdam.

When I arrived at the Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, security was tight with security guards with automatic weapons. All the signs were in Dutch and English and I easily navigated the process to pick up my luggage and proceed through customs. I immediately went to an ATM in the airport and picked up some Euros. So far things were very easy.

Businesses on an Amsterdam street

Outside the airport I caught a taxi to my hotel. The taxi driver spoke English and he told me that while the face of Euro coins are uniform no matter which country issues them, on the reverse they have different designs depending on the country where they were issued. When he gave me my change for the ride, he said he would give me the Euro coins that were issued in Germany. He said that a Dutch person would consider it an insult if he offered it to them. But he said that since I was an American they would assume that I didn’t know any better and wouldn’t say anything to me. The Driver made it clear to me that the Dutch still have ill feelings towards Germans as a result of the treatment the Dutch received from the Germans in World War II. As a matter of fact, later at work one of the Dutch men told me that the greatest insult to a Dutchman was to mistake him for a German.

House boats on an Amsterdam canal

Bike rush hour in Amsterdam.

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Travel Tales and Pictures: http://johnfultz.blogspot.com

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