Looking for Amsterdam

The real Amsterdam is probably not a perfect place. How would a visitor really know? But she would quickly see how everything is in their proper place, the books tucked neatly in their proper shelf near the hotel counter. And placed there just so.

The natives have trams, buses and bicycle lanes. Navigating through them requires much practice leading to a mastery that comes easily only to those who grew up here. The bicycles whiz by at a fast clip crisscrossing through rail tracks and the complex of lanes for public buses and cars. It takes a while to understand the codes required for doing something as mundane as crossing the street. But soon you grasp the system. And it makes perfect sense.

It is a sense of order that might have been here for centuries. We would be afraid such an affinity to proper order would lead to some loss of individual freedom. But that does not seem to be the case here. Here, nobody seems to be watching you the same way they watch you in Singapore or even the US. You can throw your cigarette butt on the ground. But of course you don’t want to, even if there are many stubs there already. The garbage can is never very far away. And so you wait until your walk takes you there.

This is a perfect place for walking. Nothing is ever too far away. And there are maps to keep you from being too lost among the museums, the red light districts and the cafes selling marijuana. They call it just plain marijuana here though there are all sorts of varieties and forms to choose from. But they don’t understand what the word “weed” means. Or perhaps they only pretend not to, if only to highlight the absurdity of applying code to an act that’s perfectly legal.

Legal marijuana. Legal prostitution. You would think a place like this would be Hell on earth. You would think there would be chaos here. Yes, and sinfulness. Our own peculiar upbringing tells us so. And one might as well presuppose even here there would be locals who consider those things sinful. And yet, there is no chaos at all. Instead, one feels only an ordered docility with everything is set exactly where they properly belong. One is free. To be exact, one is free to partake or to just simply to watch.

And the sights are wonderful. Suggestive of meanings of a peculiar historicity. For instance, places of worship set amidst the smoking dens and whorehouses. They bring to us a vision of a particular past. Imagine tall masts of sailing ships towering over the roofs of Dutch houses lining the canals. They unload sailors needing all or any one of three things after the long cold voyage. They are best done on firm ground. To pray. To sleep on a warm bed. Or to drink, to lose one’s self, to forget.

Which might be why Amsterdam is not such a place as would be fully appreciated just by watching. Some cities you watch. Others you tour and get to know better that way and by reading the tourist brochures. The museums here are Mecca for art. But they would all fall short.

Does freedom have a smell? One must first empty the lungs to prepare it for the long slow drag. One inhales Amsterdam to find it.