Europe : 4.8.18 Amsterdam words

I love Amsterdam. Not because it is a scenic city with beautiful harbour. It’s not.
Not because of majestic old buildings.  A few.       

It is a liberal society full of happy, contented, well behaved people. This manifests itself with bikes. Every day a mixture of bikes, cars, trams and pedestrians traverse this city. With no signs, no hooting, no cursing or yelling, no waving of arms, very little road rage and very few accidents. Lots of tolerance and acceptance of other people.
This country has a very long liberal history.

First country to legalise same sex marriage. In 2001.
Legal euthanasia.
Very liberal laws for prostitution and drug use.
Long history of welcoming refugees. Going back hundreds of years.

I am not directly affected in most of these areas. I love to see the cannabis cookies in the shops next to a poster for gay pride week but I don’t buy.

Staying in Amsterdam is a bit like living in a theme park. All the locals and tourists seem to know their role. 
Tourists go to Ann Frank museum, look at pictures by Van Gough and buy a fridge magnet of a clog or a windmill. 

The locals ride a bike and ask you where you are from. You find out later they just want to know what language menu to give you.  When you ask for the English menu they assume you are from England. When you say you are Australian their reaction is, “That’s a long way.”

We went to a cafe which proudly said “traditional food “. Every item on the menu had traditional Dutch name. Things like chicken and chips had been given a Dutch name and was suddenly traditional Dutch food.

Walking around Amsterdam you see very little building or road works. Very few buskers, very little vandalism, no protestors, no aggressive street marketing and very little graffiti. A little bit of rubbish. Just enough to be cleaned up efficiently and prove they are not obsessive.