Revisiting Amsterdam

Going to Amsterdam meant that summer holidays just started and that I was about to experience my friend Sara’s Erasmus from the inside. I already experienced it from the outside through the bunch of anecdotes she had explained to me during our skype conversations. So, when I got to personally know her friends it was as if I knew them already and the feeling was comforting.

Sara and I hadn’t seen each other more than five days in a row for the last 8 months, since she left before I came back from my own Erasmus. For this reason, I was excited to spend six days living with her and getting to know the city with her. I had been once in Amsterdam four years ago and the Dutch capital remained exactly as I remembered it. Nevertheless, this time was different. Besides the touristic spots, I got to visit the places where native people hung out. I always thought that it is very interesting to visit a place more than once: the first time one has to visit the historic and cultural places and from the second time on, one can get to know the essence of the city by visiting the most remote and cozy places.

Amsterdam is popularly known by the omnipresence of sex and drugs, and it is easy to understand the reason while walking through the Red Light District, smelling marihuana and being offered all kind of different substances. However, this is just a small part of what Amsterdam is. Riding the bike through Vondelpark in a sunny day, having a barbeque there, watching how the children swim in the fountain and the young people sun bathe is a really enjoyable experience that few cities offer.

Architecture is also very interesting and peculiar. The whole city is built by extremely thin and tall buildings, which have to be really deep if someone has to live inside. I was told that the façades are this small because the price of the flat depends on the width of the front.

All in all, I consider that visiting a city guided by someone who knows it well is much more enriching than reading any touristic guide. And I really was surprised by how Sara moved with her golden bike through the city almost without the help of her map.