Amsterdam

Our first sight of Amsterdam in the very early morning was a long canal into the city, and then a welcome boat creating a happy, welcoming water spray. It was very nice, even in the early light.
With only a few hours in Amsterdam, we wanted to go for a walk in the city and then go for a canal ride. Then, if time permitted, go to the Rembrandt museum. As it turned out, we never got to the museum. We spent the day walking mostly, along with a very nice canal ride.

When we go to a city for the first time, we get a feeling for the place, an overall impression. Often the first impression is not entirely accurate, and changes over time. Still, one cannot help getting that first impression. My first impression of Amsterdam was one of canals, bicycles, and grunge. The buildings are dark. The water in the canals is dark. The clothes the people wore were dark. More than dark, however, I would describe their clothes as "deep grunge". In addition, there was trash all over the place, perhaps because the night before was Saturday night (we were there on Sunday). Small gangs of young men seemed to roam the streets, making noise, many of them drunk. So my overall impression of Amsterdam was not one of beauty, but of grunge. We were very surprised because we expected to see flowers everywhere, even in the Autumn; however, we saw only one flower seller all day. Amsterdam is night and day from Copenhagen or Paris, both cities of light and joy and beauty.
One cannot help but be overwhelmed by the bicycles. There are millions of them. Everywhere. It is amazing to see so many bicycles -- on the streets and parked. Most of them are old and beat up, and we were told that the new ones are stolen quickly, so most people want old ones that are not attractive to steal. This photo shows a bicycle parking "garage". People seemed to take ferries from other places and keep their bicycles at this parking garage to pedal on to their offices. We noticed that few of the bicycles were locked; they were just leaned against something all over the city, waiting for their owners to return.