h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

City of about 700,000 inhabitants located in the province of North Holland in the Netherlands which is a small country of some 15.2 million people in northern Europe. Why isn't the Netherlands called Holland? Well ask a scott why Scotland isn't called England and if you survive then you'll start to understand.

Amsterdam though, as we are digressing once more, is known for its freedom of just about anything. Sex, drugs and for the sake of the cliché rock and roll are all easily obtainable in this city but watch out. It's the tourists who are doing the drugs mostly and you ain't going to score a zillion points with your Dutch friends (on the whole) for asking where the local coffee shop is. But it's all available if not officially legal. Yes that's right, it really isn't. It's a sort of 'blind eye' category law which allows the Police to get one with the people really causing the problem doing the importing etc as opposed to the end user who's having a puff on a Saturday evening.

That was the drugs...sex, yes that's here too and there's a lot of it. Gay, straight, boring and less boring - it's all available in bars and clubs and saunas and cinemas. Be careful you don't stick to the walls in some of these places but also don't be worried to ask people for the place you're looking for.

Do the Dutch care? Yes probably as really they're a quite conservative people. However, they're also damned proud that their country has a reputation for being tolerant...and note I said 'tolerant' and not 'liberal'. Paddy Ashdown can tell you the difference as can the OED if need be. But this is correct - because the Dutch are proud of this they kind of just go along with it and accept everything that passes them by.

So what to do in Amsterdam? Well there's enough and there is a lot of good books around on the subject. Lots of museums if that tickles your terestrial fancy and lots of shopping too. Just remember, this is a small city so the choice isn't going to be the same as that in Paris, London or New York. It's more like a small Sheffield really, and as I'm not allowed to upset people from any group, I won't even begin to continue on Sheffield in case there's an indigenous being reading this. Now, for further info if you read Dutch you can look at http://www.amsterdam.nederland.net or http://www.amsterdam.nederland.org and if you're still strugling try www.amsterdam.nl.

Have fun and I'll follow this up when I have time.

If I mentioned Kaya, would I strike any bells?

A tweak to your analogy - it's more like asking a Scot why he gets upset when people call Britain "England". As an Englishman who's an adopted Limburger, I can begin to see why the less populous and historically distinct part might want to resist being subsumed in the more populous and politically dominant part.

Well i detest that idea... I am from holland and I think it is a great country.
Small but homely, I spend most of my time in Eindhoven so I wrote a userpage on it....
And i think that somebody wrote a userpage on Amsterdam is great to.....

Fact is, only geography-challenged Americans call Britain 'England'.

That isn't a big jab at the Ham Shanks, BTW, as I've seen many, even in these hallowed pages, admit to limited geographical awareness.

Point - the whole analogy is flawed, so nyerr, nyerr!

I call England "England" and Britain I call the U.K.

Oops. Don't think this researcher realised how to submit a page. Shame because it is quite a good piece. Oh well maybe he will come back and then we can get him to move it to a proper submitted article. It was early days then though. The Guide had only been open a few weeks. Ah heady days !!

This entry is rather offensive for people born in Amsterdam as they usually don't want Amsterdam to be called a part of The Netherlands or Holland (altough Amsterdam is the capital of Holland). That's why the people from Amsterdam got this sayings like: You got Amsterdammers (people from Amsterdam) and farmers (people not from Amsterdam). You got Amsterdam and the rest of the world. If somebody asks 'where are you from?' people from Amsterdam hardly ever reply with 'from Holland' but are proud they are from Amsterdam!
Also one very important detail about Amsterdam is that it's the capital of The Netherlands, but not the political capital aka where the parliament resides! Thats a town called The Hague. It's full off politicians...
Maybe that is why Amsterdam is so beautifull: there are almost no politicians except for the city-councils. (Yep Amsterdam has a lot city-councils. Worst invention in years, probably invented by a farmer...)

Not sure this message could be offensive to anyone born in Amsterdam, they seem to have a knack of looking the other way if someone does something they don't agree with. Recently on dutch TV there was an advertisement trying to get people to be a little bit more forthcoming and not just turn a blind eye if you see someone getting beaten/mugged/abused. Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing but its sometimes good to open you mouth up and make a comment every now and again.

Amsterdamians/Dutch are admittedly quite open minded/tolerant on the surface but scratch just below that and you will find that they have their own prejudices and biased opinions just as much as anyone else. So don't ever be fooled by the so called easy going, tolerant nature that you will always be told about

A word of advice to anyone planning on living in Amsterdam. Make sure that accomodation is sorted out for you by the company you work for. When I worked there I really struggled to find an apartment. And don't bother looking in the papers for apartments. All you will find there are rip-off artists demanding 2 months rent for finding you a place.

Now *that* was quite offensive to the Dutch who are not from Amsterdam
I think saying from Amsterdam is pretty logical, most people do know where it is (except for the geographical challenged someone mentioned before) but I'm from Woubrugge, and you probably don't even know where it is, so nobody from outside the Netherlands would know where it is, so it just wouldn't make sense to say that. That doesn't mean I'm any prouder of my country then you are

Now that wasn't offensive at all!
I happen to be born in Amsterdam and still live there and guess what?
There isn't a normal appartment for hire. They try to rip off anybody, no matter if your born here or not!
Right now I live with my girlfriend and a dog in a crummy little appartment of 24 square meters. Really I ain't kidding. If I want to live in a bigger place of about 60 sq.meters I've got to pay about 4 times the rent I pay now and also 2 months in advance. This is normal out here. If you go to the rip-off artists mentioned earlier you've got to pay 8 times my current rent for those 60 meters. Of course there are some laws to protect people. But those laws aren't for 'furnished rooms'. They put in a table and a bench put up a curtain and you get ripped off. If you rent an unfurnished room and pay way too much, go to the officials. They will evaluate by a point-system. Okay you're ripped of if your place falls in the category of luxury rooms: if it has a bath instead of a shower or central heating... This really sucks. My girl wants to leave Amsterdam, but I don't want to leave my town and become a farmer

It's the same in all big cities I guess, I lived in London and you'd have to pay through the nose just to get a place that wasn't a total hole, just a bit of a hole. That's the trouble with interesting places: so many people want to live in them so the rents are high.

Hey, you're not my sister per chance?

If you're Dutch and have experience of the rental market, it might make a useful guide entry if you explained how the system works. Rather like the Rubik's cube, I managed to do it once but I'm not sure how, and I wouldn't want to have to do it again.

My experience was provincial (Venlo) rather than in Amsterdam, but it was a most confusing experience. There seemed to be plenty of estate agents in town, but few of them had rental properties. Those that did, wanted a letter from your employer before they'd even speak to you. In one agency, we found some pictures of a new development, and they wouldn't even discuss them until they had that letter. The next day we went back with the letters, bank references etc and they then told us the place had been completely rented out weeks before. I suppose they thought the photos looked pretty.

There was one agency which seemed to be government-run, which had plenty of rental properties. Unfortunately, they all had restrictions on age (under 25s, over 60s) or financial status (earning between X and Y per year). Unluckily for me, I was always earning more than Y, and in my thirties. I was asked why I didn't buy a property, and had to explain that as I was only on a 6-month rolling contract that seemed an unnecessary and possibly costly commitment.

I finally found an agent who showed me two of the most dilapidated apartments I've ever seen, and I was so desperate that I took the second one (because it had parking). Several busy weekends later it was habitable - if you like mice, and heating that breaks down every time the temperature drops below freezing, and water that the property downstairs can turn off, and do over Christmas - and I ended up spending a couple of years there. I wish I'd known how to get a decent place. If you know, please tell the world!

Yo, I'll repeat it, Miriam: are you per chance my sister? (she lives in Holland)

Oooh, were you talking to me?!
Sorry 'bout that..
Well, I think not, as far as I know I don't have any sisters and I don't live in Holland at the moment either.


Miriam\

OK, sorry. It's just that I have a sister who is 19 years older than me, lives in Holland, recently got connected to the internet and I haven't seen her face-to-face for 7 years.

Sorry to disappoint you...
I'm not even 19 years old yet
I hope for you you'll see her sometime soon...

Miriam\

Ah. I was hoping to see her last summer but it didn't work out. I need a travel companion who's over 16, and since neither of my parents have passports they can't come. I've got a passport that's never been used. I got it as I thought I was going to Israel but that too didn't work out.

How old are you then? I'm 14. Tender age I know!