ok i'll start. don't tip too much or bartenders and waiters will think you're an idiot like me. look both ways all the time, especially when you're crossing, or you might step into a bicycle path at the wrong moment. if you're relying on public transit to get home, remember the trams stop running shortly after midnight. don't forget to stop and look up at the buildings. also see http://www.postwarmedia.nl/amsterdam.html ... enjoy yourself and have a sweet trip. who's next? love s g collins
you suck for saying that about the tips. i work as a waitress, and the best tips i get are from foreigners. we may look at you weird simply because were surprised, not because were unhappy, k?
There are loads of things to look out for when visiting A'dam, such as:- You will walk loads and loads and loads, be warned, if you don't hire a bike or use trams, by the end of your holiday you will be aching. Always inspect the weed your buying and make sure they weigh it infront of you, tip and use the free rolling papers provided. SGCollins is correct about walking into bike lanes, I can pretty much guarantee you will get in the way of itleast a few bikes.LOL Lager and weed around the RLD is a little more expensive than deeper into the city, get some duty free. Keep your camera lens away from the window girls and avoid all street dealers in this area also. Personnaly, although I have done it, don't buy weed from the tourist orrientated coffeshops, very much a ''hit or miss'' affair. Finnaly don't waste your holiday hanging around the RLD too much there are so many other things to do in the city. Have a good one Rasputin
KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR SHIT, especially in Centraal Station. Loads of pickpockets around there. I witnessed one guy slip his hand into another guy's coat so quickly that the victim was completely unaware. It happened so fast that I wasn't sure what I saw at first. I have to agree with the comment about avoiding the street dealers. In fact, don't even give them the courtesy of saying "no, thank you" or else they might try to follow you and keep pushing it. In the RLD at night, I couldn't take 5 steps without being offered cocaine or heroine. From what I hear, those who offer extasy are probably offering something else. But there are smart shops where you can get psychedelic shrooms, if ya wanna take another kind of trip. If you're from the US, be warned that if you buy a joint, it's gonna be mixed with tobacco. So, if you don't smoke cigs, I'd stick with buying the buds and picking up a cheap pipe. I picked up a decent glass piece for only 5 Euro. At the end of my trip, I gave it away. It was a good investment for me. The RLD is a lot of fun, but take the time to explore more than the weed culture. I made a point of hitting a few museums and little historical sites all around A'Dam, like the Rijksmuseum (I found it a bit dull, but that's just me), Van Gogh Museum (very interesting. I suggest hitting that up. and it's next to Rijksmuseum), Anne Frank Huis, and I did go through a hidden catholic chapel in the RLD, from when Catholicism was illegal. Also, check out some of the canal tours and go on at least one. I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful guide for a good portion of my stay in Amsterdam. Thanks, velvet!!! She was great! showed me a few shops that I might not have noticed before, as well as a few good places for drinks and such. After a week over in the Netherlands, I still hadn't seen a lot of Amsterdam. But that's okay. Gives me a good reason to go back.
this is great! as long as we're here ... since you're in the biz, tell me what tip range you think is good. i can't ask the server in the restaurant how much is considered a fatsoenlijk fooi. my dutch friends criticize me for tipping like a foreigner. i've even been taken to task by bartenders for tipping *them* too much. i want your professional opinion pleeease less than ___ percent and the customer is a cheapskate bastard. more than ___ percent and the customer is trying too hard to impress us. love s g collins
we here don't think in tips percentage wise.. When dutch ppl tip, we mostly just make it a round number.. Like when you have to pay 12,75 and you give a 20 you say make it 15.. But unlike in the states waitresses don't rely on their tips for salary, it's just a nice plus..
Yeah, I do that as well.. but I try to keep it at about 10%.. although if we are with a group and go for dinner or sth, the tip can get really huge because everyone makes his/her share a round number.. so if 8 people make 12,75 into 15.. well.. you do the math (no seriously, you do it, I don't feel like it ) By the way.. if the service really sucks.. like if they are rude or sth, they don't get shit.. I let them give me back my change to the last damn coin.. hehe..
that goes without saying.. hehe.. lol.. makes me think of what an African friend told me once. When he was homeless he once found a 50 euro note, which ofcourse was a gift from heaven for him. Anyway, the note was folded a few times.. so he said "I knew it had to belong to a non-Dutch person because Dutch people don't fold their money like that, they put it in their wallet without folding it, they really respect their money".. hehehe Kinda true.. my notes are in my wallet unfolded.. but Surinam people usually just fold it and put it in a pocket or sth.. hehe..
when i first got here, tipping only 10 percent made me feel sneaky, like i was getting away with murder. now i've evolved to the point where it seems fair enough. how's my inburgering? love s g collins
haha i fold it all the time. i get my money, dont care if its 10 cents or 120 euro, i just put it in my pocket and thats that.
only 10 percent? i love americans because i know they usually give 10% tips, which is a lot here. sometimes they know its not common here, so they just give random coins. just stay ignorant and think 10% is the standard everywhere, itll make people happy, trust me haha. but someone else already said it, people here dont tip by following some percentage, they just make it a round number.
thanks myrtje! speaking of tipping ... early during the german occupation here, they introduced a sales tax in the horeca. i think it was late 1940, about 8 months into the bezetting. in those days you could still get coffee in amsterdam. the price of a cup of coffee went from 20 cents to 21 cents including tax. people would commonly pay a quarter and let the server keep the change -- and they didn't change that habit when the sales tax came in. so the servers effectively ended up paying the tax out of their tip jar. over a whole weekend that would be a 20 percent cut in your tips. they didn't like that. from what i read, apparently in those days service people depended more on tips than they do now. maybe organized labor wasn't strong in the horeca? and maybe the economic crisis of the 1930s had weakened their position more. sometimes i wish all these millions of tourists wandering around could have a few more little plaques to read about what happened here. for myself, i think learning more has made me a bit more respectful of the place. even though so much of the look of the city now is the same as it was then, i still have trouble imagining how that time felt. today there's so much relative opulence in amsterdam -- plenty to eat, more bars than mailboxes, lots of people looking like they're having a good time. sometimes i just stand there in rembrandtplein looking around trying to imagine the mood of this place on 7 - 9 february '41. i haven't found any plaques or monuments commemorating what happened there that weekend. thousands of people flow through and nobody seems to know or care. i've sat in the former alcazar cabaret (thorbeckeplein 5, now de heeren van aemstel) and talked to the manager and staff. they had no idea about the seige of the alcazar by WA men, or the later onderduikers upstairs, or that anything of historic importance had happened in the building where they work. for that matter, most people sitting in cafe los don't seem to know it used to be a police station (i've seen the police records of that day from that posthuis, you can read them at the gemeentearchief if you get written permission). the people flocking around the "escape" club may look up and see the word "lunchroom" exposed where the facade is being redone, but mostly they don't seem to know about heck's lunchroom and the fighting that happened there during the so-called "judenaktion". looking back it all seems like an elaborately staged play. those rembrandtplein riots led to the fighting in waterlooplein where WA man hendrik koot was killed ... which then led to the sealing off of the joodsche wijk and the mass arrests in j d meyerplein ... which led to the february strike, which led to the violent german crackdown against the strike ... which led to a strengthening of the resistance movement. and for me, mythically it all flows from the instant when that WA man throws the bicycle through the glass at cafe alcazar. love s g collins
Interesting point you make. I think the thing is that you take your own country for granted most of the time.. I think I know more about Rome for example when it comes to it's history than I do about Amsterdam. It would be interesting to have more signs that tell you what happened where.. but on the other hand: Amsterdam isn't an open air museum. Although it's very important not to forget the past, we live in the now and should focus on the future. In WWII a lot of terrible things happened and I think that for Amsterdam, Anne Frank embodies that (even though she wasn't technically Dutch). In every big city (and small village for that matter) good things and bad things happen.. I'm sure if you buy a very good guide to Amsterdam it will mention things like that.. but at the same time you can't really expect to be remembered by everything that happened in the past when you visit a certain place. When I was in Rome I tried to feel the 'old roman vibe' as well.. but it's almost impossible to do.. things change, evolve.. but the people you will see are the offspring of the people who lived in the past.. the houses and trees still carry marks of long forgotten times. The past, the present ànd the possible future is in every breath you take.. but you can't seperate one from the other. At least.. that's the way I see it. Thanks for the interesting info btw.
sgCollins Excuse my ignorance and naïvety here, but have you written a book.? Your name seems familiar. Cheers
you mention little plaques, on the pieteraaertzstraat (spelling?) at huis number 100 there is/was a patat place. in the 1940's it was owned by two jewish brothers. i don't know the details but they were murdered by the nazis. there is a little plaque on the wall to 'remember' the brothers. the plaque is on the ferdinand bol or van wou street,(wherever 100 pieteraartzstraat is) at a river (damn if i can remember, its either near the leidseplein or in the rivieren buurt) there is another bigger monumnet to 12 people shot by the germans.
