Amsterdam, Netherlands, 25th May 2012
I've been through Amsterdam many times due to KLM frequently offering the only reasonably-priced flights from Geneva to anywhere else but, aside from one evening's venturing into town a while back, I've never actually been into the city for a good look around. This was to change on one bright and sunny day. A 10 hour layover turned into an 8 hour layover because of a delayed flight but M and I, adventurers extraordinaire, finally made it to Amsterdam's Central Station and headed off vaguely south in an attempt to find an Indonesian restaurant to start the day with.
Albert Cuypstraat Market
As per usual, we found a market, more bars and restaurants than you could shake a stick at and pretty much everything else aside from the Indonesian restaurant we were hunting for and settled for a sandwich and a beer while engaging in the most touristy of procrastinatory activities, "people watching". Whereas the conclusions that can be drawn from such an activity are not always very enlightening (e.g. hotpants are in fashion this year and an incredible amount of people in Amsterdam own bicycles) it's an easy activity to carry out, a generally accepted travel practise (for some reason) and also fun (especially when hotpants are in fashion). It's also a way to get out all of the passive aggressive tension built up from sitting right in front of a screaming baby for the entire flight over ("how can a bicycle survive when it's sat on by a guy that fat ??").
The "as many bicycles as possible" picture which could, admittedly, have been better
The after was spent doing normal sunny-day-in-Amsterdam things such as wandering around, wishing I hadn't worn a long sleeved black t-shirt, having a beer on a terrace and trying to take pictures with as many bicycles in as possible. We finished off the tour with a visit to the red light district.
Generic Amsterdam Street Scene #823774923426748
Generic Amsterdam Canal Picture #58934904535/867
I am by no means experienced in red light districts (in fact this is the first one I have been to, having narrowly avoided wandering into one in Morocco by mistake) but Amsterdam's is rather a curious one by virtue of the people one may find there. And here I am not talking about the working ladies (which I would presume can be found in all red light districts) but the non-workers wandering around. Couples and curious wanderers of all ages can be found here, sampling a beer in the pleasant terrace bars dotted around and inspecting the strip clubs while being enticed in by the greeters at the door. It's all quite brazen - I heard one woman being offered "seeing three cocks for twenty Euros" and an older couple being assured that "there is real fucking in here" - but it's as close to what one might call a family atmosphere as you could imagine. The working ladies come out into the street and chat with each other and prospective clients and you almost forget (but not completely, of course) that they're standing around in minimal lingerie. Hen and stag parties complete the carnival atmosphere. In another one of the curiosities of travel, being offered "real fucking in here" is more of a cultural experience rather than the seedy night-time escapade that you'd never tell your work colleagues about if you visited a red light district in any other city in the world. 
Amsterdam's liberal attitude even extends to bicycle parking
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