I believe that in the same way someone can be attracted
to a person, they can be attracted to a place. And in the same way one can’t be
held accountable or necessarily even explain why they are attracted to a
person, sometimes you have a hard time figuring out why you’re drawn to a place.
This “city sex appeal” happened to me in Amsterdam. It’s partially because of
this immediate infatuation that I haven’t yet blogged about my trip to
Amsterdam, despite the fact that it’s one of the first places I visited in
Europe.
Believe it or not, Amsterdam’s sex appeal (for me) has
nothing to do with its reputation for weed and prostitution. I’ve never understood
why this is such a big deal for Amsterdam, considering you can easily find both
of these things elsewhere in the world. To me, they have little to do with the
unique personality of Amsterdam and anyone who doesn’t look past the sex and
the drugs is missing something essential about the city.
“So, Innocent Bystander, what is it about Amsterdam that
captures your imagination?” you ask.
Not an easy question to answer, but I’m sure a lot of it
has to do with a book I read as a freshman in high school. Postcards from No Man’s Land by Aiden Chambers. I’m sure very few
of my readers have read this book. It’s not a spectacular work of fiction by
any means, but it has a lot of heart in that little-league-baseball kind of
way. And its loving descriptions of
Amsterdam from the point of view of a troubled teen spoke to my inner traveler
while I struggled with the complications of high school life. I must have read that
book seven or eight times, imagining myself within the plot and wondering if I'd ever have the chance to have such an amazing time of self-discovery.
It’s rare that our visualizations of an experience or
place match the reality. And yet, my weekend in Amsterdam was what little kids
experience when they go to Disneyland: the city was exactly how I imagined it. The
spider web of streets and canals, the maniac cyclists, the
bigger-than-your-head pancakes, the drifting house boats, the intimate rows of “regular”
houses, the English speaking residents who don’t hold a foreigner’s status
against them…The list goes on.
More than any of these aspects, I was most affected by the
strange feeling of acceptance the city’s extreme tolerance produces. Obviously
there are drawbacks to this open-mindedness, but the city’s experience with the
Nazi occupation doubtless convinced the citizens of the benefits of tolerance.
However, it’s important to realize that Amsterdam is not a city of hippies. Our
tour guide emphasized Amsterdam’s insistence that tolerance be given if it is
beneficial to their economy. And Amsterdam is not poor. I quite like this
concept; it seems like a good balance of idealism and practicality.
But what do I know? I only spent three days in this place
and like any passionate fling, I’m bound to inflate the good or exciting
qualities and romanticize the flaws. Such is the gift and the curse of memory.
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