TJ's Travels: Amsterdam

If Amsterdam had surf, I'd move there... That's how much we loved the charming city. Again avoiding the touristy part of town, Stu and I got a studio in the heart of a residential neighborhood far from the camera-wielding geeks we sought to avoid. Perhaps most famous for its red light district and "coffee houses", we found the best parts of the city to be the laid-back atmosphere, tree-lined canals, small cafes and friendly people. Though Amsterdam is a canal city like Venice, it has an entirely different feel as the waterways are much wider and seem to follow a city plan as opposed to haphazardly winding through the city. Besides traveling the city by water, which seems to be mostly for tourists and locals on sunset booze cruises, there are cars but the most common mode of transport is by far the bicycle. Working people, students, kids and entire families dart in and out, going about their days.

Wandering the streets, one of our favorite activities was just enjoying a home-made sandwich, dangling our feet over the water as we watched boats chug along the canals.

Around the city, there are many second-hand fashion stores and flea markets scattered about. One the coolest ones we visited was this floating flower market, set up on some old boats.

Below, Stu checks out some healthy snacks at a farmer's market.

Above, the street our studio was on and below, crossing over a canal.

Around sunset, locals like to get in their boats and cruise the canals with beer and music, people watching and enjoying the remaining summer months. Because the bridges have very low clearance, boats can't be too tall so you don't see yachts like you might back home. Rather people have really round, stubby boats that look more like floating bathtubs. We learned that these boats can cost upwards of $80,000 much to our surprise and the rounder the boat, the cooler it is.

This boat below passed us blasting loud techno while its reveled swilled on Amstel Beer, which is brewed a few canals over...

Besides booze cruising, boats also play serve as floating homes for many people in Amsterdam. In a few places, rows of boats looked permanently moored creating entire floating communities. Below, are a few of these house boats.

Amsterdam is also home to Heineken, undoubtedly one of the most overrated beers in the world but we felt in light of the beer tour we had just completed in Belgium, we needed to check out the Heineken experience. While the beer was terrible as ever, the lesson in branding and marketing was pretty cool.