I AMsterdam: part 2

Amsterdam Centraal Station

I had not heard this before going, but apparently Amsterdam is the bicycle capital of Europe.  Just as Montana and Wyoming have more buffalo than people, there are more bicycles than people in Amsterdam!  Can you believe that?  It seems crazy, but right next to Centraal Station (catch a train south to Brussels, or an express to Paris from here!) is a HUGE parking structure, packed with THOUSANDS of bikes (at least 5 or 6 thousand)!  The Dutch must have good memories ... sometimes I stare aimlessly around the bike room at BU because I forgot where I parked my bike.  In any case, because there are so many bicycles on the road, the streets are "organized" in the following way: 

the middle lanes are for buses and trams.  The bus/tram stops are on small islands in the road, which separate the bus/tram lanes from the automobile lanes.  Moving outwards from the car lane is a skinny sidewalk for pedestrians, then yet another lane solely for bikes (sometimes you'll find motor scooters here), and finally a wider sidewalk.  Though, I should note that this template is mainly used on the main roads.  Smaller streets are too skinny for buses and trams, which means that bikes, scooters, cars, and pedestrians really compete for the same space.

According to the tour guide of our canal boat tour, even the Mayor of Amsterdam rides his bike to work.  You will recognize him by his suit and his compliance with bicycle laws of the road.  Crossing the street in Amsterdam is an adventure of itself!  Also according to our guide, city officials fish something close to ten thousand bicycles from the canals every year.  

The Seven Bridges

The canals really shape Amsterdam's character.  They were first formed when a dam was built in the Amstel river, which now runs down the middle of the city, and created a network of water capillaries.  The canals almost form perfect concentric circles around the city center (Albert Camus equated them to the layers of hell, as described in Dante's Inferno)!  I think the guide said there is around 100 km of canals in the city limits alone and a total of 1,281 bridges.  However, because the canals are so twisty, the most bridges you can see at once is seven .... and, lucky for you, I got a picture of the Seven Bridges!

On our bicycle tour, we weaved over all seven!

canal and pulleys

Another iconic feature of Amsterdam, to which I alluded in the previous post, are the buildings along the canal ways.  (Because the city is below sea level, real estate is sparse and quite expensive). Canal homes are tall and skinny, with very narrow and steep staircases.  Then how do people move in and out of residences?  Great question!  Affixed to the top of many of the buildings, jutting out over the sidewalk, are beams (pictured here) with a pulley attached so that you can easily hoist your stuff up the outside of your house and through the windows of the appropriate floor.  Some of these buildings were even built to slightly arch over the sidewalk so that hoisted items have more room to swing (and not destroy the facade of the house).  What's more, some houses along the canals are starting to lean in one direction because of poorly or incorrectly planned foundations.  There are ways to stabalize such buildings, but eventually some of them do collapse.  There is even a hotel that advises you to tie yourself to the bed before sleep, lest you find yourself on the floor come morning!

Still interested in moving to Amsterdam??

Canals at night

 If that wasn't enough of a hassle, the weather in Amsterdam is arguably worse than London.  As beautiful as the city is, the rain is practically perpetual.  Despite this, we felt prepared to handle it with our rain jackets and umbrellas .... that is, until it started to HAIL on Sunday!  And this is no ordinary hail ... it was the size of small marbles, which is why most people rush under awnings, into shops, etc., until it stopped.  The only people who didn't dare rush for shelter were .... any guesses? .... yep: those poor souls standing in line for the Anne Frank House.  It was like watching penguins huddle together to conserve body heat.  I didn't know whether to laugh or pity them.  Haha, suckers!

Windmill home

And since we're talking about Dutch icons, I cannot go any further without mentioning the windmills!  Stephanie, our bike tour guide, said that at one point Holland had around 9 thousand windmills.  Today there are a lot less because many were dismantled as industrialization spread throughout Europe.  They were originally used to grind grains, but many of the remaining ones today are dormant.  In fact, the windmill pictured here is actually someone's home now.  According to Stephanie, in order to live in a retired windmill, you have to take a course on how to operate one.  Why?  No one really knows!

One of the wider canals

Thanks for reading!  Look out for continuing stories about Amsterdam!