jenviolin

Jim, I love your blind-men-and-the-elephant analogy!<BR>Though I live in South Holland, I love to go to Amsterdam for:<BR>-world-class museums and exhibits<BR>-world-class concerts and dance<BR>-spectacular architecture from the Dutch Golden Age<BR>-fabulous Indonesian & Thai food<BR>-convivial cafes and pubs<BR>-the enormity of the engineering feat that made Amsterdam (once basically swampland)<BR>-the most diverse types of people I've ever seen in one city<BR>-great shopping and window-shopping, particulary in interior design<BR><BR>The red light district? Coffeeshops? If you're not interested, don't go there. They don't dominate the city by any means. Many Dutch people would never visit them, either. That doesn't make you - or them - prudes. Haarlem, Leiden, Gouda, Delft, Maastricht, and Den Bosch are other wonderful cities which you may want to visit. The large National Park 'Hoge Veluwe' near Arnhem has a stunning art museum & sculpture garden, cafes, restaurants and playgrounds under the trees, and free white bicycles you can use for biking all over the park. Brenda, don't worry - no one's going to make you do anything you don't want to do.

Eye Spy

Sjoerd: What you say about my comments about the health care system in Holland are false. Perhaps you have not experienced it but we in my family have. And that system killed my grandmother so you ought to consider that. It is not acceptable she had to wait 6 months for a bed in the hospital in order to have an operation. You find it normal to wait that long? That's really great healthcare .... not. In America, if a doctor diagnosed someone with cancer, he or she would be admitted forthwith. In "klein maar fijn Nederland" the opposite is true. Obviously you like having to pay for something and not getting anything in return. So spare me the Dutch system propaganda rubbish and stay over there. But wait, I bet you live in America and just don't want to admit the difference and the superiority of the American system.

Hans H

I never understood why Amsterdam got this reputation for a red light district with US tourists. The Netherlands aren't the only country with legalized prostitution and if you're interested, you can for example find a brothel in any mid-sized German town and red-light districts in any large town. That doesn't mean that life revolves around prostitution.