When in Rome, Fall 2008: I AMsterdam

Wow, what a progressive place Amsterdam is! Our train arrived at the Amsterdam Central Station and we walked directly to our hostel (The Flying Pig Downtown), which was located just off of the Damrak (main street running off of the train station). We walked around a bit, ate (large Dutch pancake), and spent the rest of the night getting caught up on our email, blogs and sleep. The next morning we continued to explore Amsterdam and took the free walking tour which started at 11 AM, meeting in front of the national monument. The company running it, New Europe, has multiple tours like this in various cities throughout Europe, and the tour is free but your tour guide is so good that you end up wanting to tip him at the end. I learned that the city was made by damming the Amstel river, hence the name Amstel-dam or Amsterdam (the Dutch named practically everything in this obvious way). The fact that the city is dammed up meant that the whole community had to work together in times of need in order to repair the dam and prevent or respond to floods, so there was a great sense of tolerance, community and welcoming of all people since everyone was dependent upon each others’ survival, and that mentality still exists today. One of the main cultural aspects of Amsterdam is its large number of bikes and bikers, leading to 3 story bike racks the size of parking garages, the much larger likelihood to be hit by a bike than a car when crossing the street, and the tendency for the Dutch to throw unchained bikes into the canals so that a crane has to dig them out of the water every day. Also, The Dutch were taxed according to floor width of the first floor (plus as many Dutch as possible wanted to live along a canal) so most buildings are tall and narrow with steep, narrow staircases. This makes moving furniture in and out of the houses hard so the buildings are purposely built leaning slightly forward with hooks sticking out of their facades near the roof so that anything large or heavy can be hoisted up and through a window using a rope without scraping the front of the building.

The Dutch were great sea merchants, bringing great wealth to the nation. When rich sailors returned to Amsterdam after being at sea with only other men for several months, one of the first things they wanted was some female companionship, which is why prostitution developed. The Netherlands officially legalized prostitution in 2000, and since then sex-workers (as they are properly called) don’t have to worry about any dangers since the Red Light District is now regularly patrolled and under video surveillance, with two police stations on opposite ends of the district. In fact, the Red Light District is the safest place in all of Amsterdam since it is so heavily watched and no criminals would dare take any risks when under such high surveillance. Also, sex-workers are considered equal to any other profession and pay taxes and receive benefits, have unions and are respected by the community for their contribution to the economy. In fact, there are panic buttons in every sex-worker’s room and if anything goes wrong causing her to push the button, all the nearby locals will rush to the scene and make sure the abusive client regrets his actions.

Amsterdam is also known for its high tolerance of marijuana. What is interesting though is that it isn’t actually legal in Amsterdam, just de-criminalized. The use of the drug is essentially given a blind eye, which is why the places where they are sold are called coffee-shops instead of any more revealing name. Efforts to stop the high prevalence and use of both hard and soft drugs by force was ineffective, so they de-criminalized soft drugs (which are naturally made) and focused solely on hard drugs (which are made by man). The result has been extremely effective, with only about 9% of Dutch citizens now using marijuana whereas about 15% of citizens from countries such as France, England and the U.S. using marijuana. With similar success, the legalization of prostitution has led to sex-workers having lower STI rates than the general population because they always use protection at their job whereas most of the general public (especially in other countries besides the Netherlands) tend to be more careless when it comes to using protection. Most of the people who actually smoke and use the Red Light District are actually tourists. More focus has been spent on educating the Dutch general public of the serious dangers of hard drugs, with coffee-shops displaying warnings and educational materials about hard drugs. The main problem for Amsterdam locals is no longer a drug or prostitution problem, but rather a tourist problem with packs of people now crowding the city to experience the freedom the city provides, but in return also blocking bike lanes, etc. The high number of tourists sure boosts the Dutch economy though (btw coffee-shops and Red-Light District companies are taxed much higher than other businesses, at around 50% of their income rather than the normal 25% or 30% of most normal Dutch citizens).

I find the Dutch attitude towards prostitution and soft drugs interesting, and think we may be able to learn some things from it. They recognize that both are very likely to exist not matter what they do (either through the dangerous underground/black market if they try to control it by force or by legalizing it and having much more control over it… which has turned out to be effective and good for the national economy). I am not sure whether the circumstances are the same to make it work in the U.S., but I think it would be beneficial to try educating our population more on the differences between soft and hard drugs (to reduce hard drug use) and educating children about proper and useful sex education at a younger age. Dutch children are taught sex education as early as 12 or 13 and as a result have lower birth, abortion, and STI rates! Norweigans learn sex education as early as 11 or 12 and have similar results. Overall Amsterdam is a very progressive place. I am glad I visited it now because in the near future it will likely be gone: the number of coffee-shops and Red Light District windows have been capped by the Democratic Christian party, and as a result more and more of them are disappearing until soon there will be no more left. This will likely lead to the unsafe black market circumstances the market was in before marijuana and prostitution became tolerated/legal. By the way, I apologize if I offended or made anyone uneasy while reading what I wrote above, but perhaps if we changed our mentalities of drugs and prostitution as a subject that shouldn’t be talked about and should be physically removed whatever the cost, we may find a more reasonable and effective approach.

After the tour I went to the Van Gough Museum. It was interesting to see how his paintings changed over time with the places he went, people he met, and increasing severity of his illness. My favorite painting of his that I saw in the museum was the Wheat Reaper… I really liked his method of using thick paint with straight brush strokes to further aid the sense of direction of the compositions in the painting. The initial chaotic direction of the wheat then being cut by the reaper and collected into much more orderly bundles had an awesome contrasting effect, and I heard that the story of the Grim Reaper also originated here in Amsterdam which also adds to my appeal to the painting.

Yesterday I walked around Amsterdam and went to Anne Frank’s house. It is now a museum but was once the building of her father’s jam-making business and was where she and her family hid from the Nazis for several months until being discovered. It was a moving experience: walking through all the rooms, and reading corresponding parts of her diary to the places and things I saw. She was constantly in fear and of course what happened to her and all the other Jews during that time was horrible. I could easily imagine her life during these few years, so it was a powerful way to experience history. Tonight we will leave for Berlin, my last stop before Italy! It has rained a bit in every city I've been to so far so I should see some more sun in the upcoming days =).