AmsterDAYUM son!

Oh Amsterdam.

Do I even need to write a blog post for Amsterdam?

Or can I just spam you with photos of this gorgeous, picturesque city?

Amsterdam is ridiculously pretty. So much so that I don't even care that there wasn't much to do in this city. Just walking around taking photos of bridges, flowers, boats and those quaint little canal houses was enough to keep me amused. Throw in a bit of cheese tasting here and there and Cynthia is one happy traveler.

Here are some fun facts I picked up during my time here:

• Dutch people are the tallest people on the planet. We did a Sandeman's 'free' walking tour and the guide joked that it was a process of natural selection. As global warming increases, sea levels rise and thus it becomes more difficult for short humans to survive in canal-based environments such a Amsterdam. Heh.  
• 15 people die each year from pissing into Amsterdam canals and subsequently falling in. Hence why public urinals aka 'de crul' are a thing in this city
• The narrowest house in Amsterdam is 2.02 metres across
• Contrary to popular belief, marijuana has never technically been made legal in this city, it's only been decriminalised. What this means is that the selling of drug is actually not legal. It is just widely tolerated as long as it is done in a limited, controlled way. The coffeeshops are constantly under surveillance by authorities and large scale production is still forbidden

The Rijks Museum I'd recommend if you had an afternoon to spare. Go for The Night's Watch..The museum also does a good job of taking you through a logical timeline of Dutch history, starting from 1200 right up to the present. If you follow the signs, you don't need to do too much doubling back to go see something you've missed - which is nice if you're slightly OCD like me. 

Woah mate, getting a bit grabby there aren't you? 

We originally weren't planning to go to the Anne Frank house because of how hard it was to get tickets (you need to either book very early in advance or be willing to queue up for a million years). But during our Sandeman's tour, we heard that the official website was now doing this thing where they would release a set number of tickets at a specific time of day (might've been 11am) and if you were lucky enough to be online at that time, you could potentially snag a ticket or two. We got tickets by doing this and I'm so glad I got to avoid this MASSIVE MASSIVE QUEUE like wtf you'll be 90 by the time you reach the end??

You can't even see the end of the line

On a totally different note, we also went to check out the Red Light District during our time in Amsterdam to see what all the fuss about. I found it more interesting to observe how the male tourists were acting towards the female sex workers than the actual sex workers themselves. Felt like the men should've been the ones behind the glass instead, considering how...animal-like they were acting.

You do you Amsterdam, you do you.

Final Thoughts

I really like Amsterdam. I like how liberal their attitudes are towards issues like sex work, drugs and sexuality. They're very much about regulating through decriminalization and normalising practices and I think if they've managed to make it work, then the world really should learn from their example. Of course, their society's open-mindedness is largely responsible for the success and perhaps it wouldn't be as easy implementing the same models in say Australia or somewhere else where society is still largely conservative (despite outwardly protesting not to be).

Stay cool Amsterdam xx