This was my first trip to Amsterdam.  I would like to share some impressions of things that stand out from my perspective because they sort of shout out at me how different this city appears to be from my experience living in Southern California:

• The city is so different (obviously) in its physical construction:
  • Small tall buildings that stand next to the next building shoulder to shoulder, meaning that one building’s wall rests next to the next building with no air space in-between.
  • Every building has multiple floors.
  • Each building has a different look to it.
  • Not all but most buildings are slender, meaning they are taller than wide.
  • Canals.
  • The curbs are three inches or less and at times hard to discern from the rest of the walking and traffic surface so take care that you know you are on a sidewalk or not.
  • The traffic lanes for people, bicycles, motorcycles, trollies is at times a challenge to discern.
  • It is a guess of mine but I feel that their trades people are pretty darn good at what they do.  Our hotel construction inner spaces shows a level of craftsmanship that is quite good.
• Vibrant.  If you have visited New York and never visited Amsterdam, let me tell you that this city is the opposite from sleepy.
• People are interesting to look at:
  • They are all young looking.  This is no exaggeration!   My son who is 25 years of age made this observation within hours of arriving.
  • Most every person in Amsterdam is slender build.
  • The people of Amsterdam dress with fashion.  This is not to mean that they dress to impress but rather look like each just stepped out of a fashion magazine because this is what they do.
  • They love bicycles and rows upon rows of them line the streets and people ride them all over the city, even in the rain.
  • I am rather surprised at seeing young sleek, attractive women riding down street bicycle paths.  Because most all the women I see riding bicycles are slender, rather tall, light hair, and extremely attractive and easily could model for a magazine I get the impression that these women are being paid to give the city some sparkle.
• The Amsterdam traffic is quite interesting to experience and a bit challenging at first to keep from getting hit.  There seems to be very few places one can park a vehicle.  Some of the streets are narrow and the side walks are very slender.  Parking a bicycle or scooter on some streets requires you put your vehicle on the sidewalk.  To get a better sense of this, view this short movie I made called Amsterdam Traffic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9_ttkq22ig

Sorry but I had just purchased a Nikon D5300 a few weeks prior to taking this trip to Europe.  I made a long list of mistakes with this camera, so many I will put up a separate blog post of self shame.  One mistake you will hear in the audio is  a plastic tapping sound.  Like an idiot, I am holding the lens cap against the lens, not realizing it was tapping.