NorCalif

But since I'm in a mood to ramble on, Ozarks, some of your comments reminded me of something I noticed when I lived in Amsterdam for this past year. American's reactions to various things there varied widely by what part of the US they are from. I knew American expats there from places like Minnesota and Nebraska, say, that found things in Amsterdam to be very "different than things at home". But expats from New York, San Francisco, etc. ... not so much. In fact Amsterdam reminds me very much of SF. If you substitute hills for canals. And add sunshine. ;-> I mean the two cities remind me of each other in terms of social ambience, tolerance, and diversity - you know, the general vibe.

Palenque

Well in Amsterdam the mental cases are in the coffeeshops!

girlbythwhirlpool

Here's another gem. There are still coffee shops over there serving beer. Between Red Light and Dam square. Just ask the locals where to go. This is a total F U to the Government in typical Dutch fashion! I love the Dutch. Appears that the Coffee shop owners would rather pay a nominal fine than lose the profit made from a night of beer sales. And from what I was told, they rarely get checked-up on in the less touristy areas...

Palenque

the Bulldog Palace would be a huge enterprise coffeeshop that makes most of its money on booze i would think - but i guess the difference is that their 'pot shop' is down in the cellar, separated from the fancy emporium above? Anyway the Bulldog Palace, dominating the Leidesplein is now an Amsterdamned icon, known all over the world from legions of American college-aged kids having partied there and reporting back home. And it is part of the Bulldog empire that runs several authentic coffeeshops, including the original Bulldog on O Z Voorburgwal dead center in the RLD - along with Mellow Yellow and Rusland the first places in Amsterdam it seems to also openly sell cannabis - way before the laws allowed it legally. Indeed i do remember the old fat British bulldog that once hung out at the original Bulldog.

Ozarksbill

Bulldog you say? As a graduate of Drake Univ. and also Yale I am twice over a bulldog...bow wow wow.

Note to NorCal...yes where you live does determine your views about various things...but also and maybe more so your religious and political views. I was born in Chicago oft visited, son and his partner live in Boston (were two years in SF), daughter married to Quebecois and in Florida, and we are well traveled so don't reflect typical Ozarkian views.

In an earlier Fodor's Forum I had a discussion about social services after a trip to Scandinavia. Americans are it seems often generous but also narrow minded about caring for less fortunate. Egalitarian is a word that is European.

Oh yes, should mention we are just back from two weeks in Louisiana including NOLA. Walking down Bourbon St. you do indeed see nearly naked ladies posing in club entrances. I am married and also old and I have no idea about services offered. Maybe just jazz! Reminded one a bit of Amsterdam?

Ozarksbill

Leely2

<i>Walking down Bourbon St. you do indeed see nearly naked ladies posing in club entrances. I am married and also old and I have no idea about services offered. Maybe just jazz! </i>

That was hilarious. Even though you are "old," Ozarksbill, you have a spry sense of humor.

I'm really enjoying this thread--thanks to all the participants.

Palenque

And before Cannabis was demonized in the 1930s practically single handedly by a fed gov't official with the jingoistic help of William Randolph Hurst - who allegedly named it 'marijuana' Mexican for mary jane to further taint it - but in N'Orlens there may not have been outright coffeeshops but i understand a whole lot of jazz clubs, etc where cannabis smoking was rampant and tolerated - indeed cannabis was also i guess the fashion in 'high' society in DC amongst dignitaries during the late 1800s - so N'Orlens was a bit like Amsterdam in the past and apparently a bit now too.

Palenque

but to continue the thought above associating cannabis or marijuana with blacks in seedy clubs or Mexicans helped make it a dangerous thing in folks' minds the movie Reefer Madness quite well documents this demonizing of the awful drug that would make folks mad.

hetismij

NorCalif, the mentally ill tend to get caught in the social safety net too. Not always, but usually. Those who fall out side of the net are the illegals, but they don't tend to hang around the centre of Amsterdam - in case they get picked up.

Several towns along the border with Belgium have closed their coffee shops. Because of the huge numbers of drugs tourists from Belgium and France descending on small towns every weekend, and basically trashing them.
Several coffeeshops in Amsterdam must close because they are too close to schools.
There is talk of introducing membership or passes to access the coffeeshops to cut down on the drugs tourists. I can't see it happening.
Smoking is allowed in cafes/coffeeshops/bars/pubs which are owned and operated by one person, i.e. they do not employ staff. Otherwise smoking is permitted in a smoking room.
Small baggies are allowed to be taken off premises, but only one per person, with a very small amount in it.
With the current Christian coalition in power coffeehouses are increasingly under threat. Luckily the third member of the coalition is the PvdA (Labour Party) who balance the other two out for now. How long this coalition will last is anybody's guess. Next time we could get madman Wilders in it and then we're all heading for hell in a hand basket

NorCalif

hetismij - thanks for your answer re: the mentally ill in the Netherlands and the social safety net. But evidently here in the US some of the mentally ill people living on the streets sometimes refuse the social safety net that we do have, for various reasons; they may be incapable of, or unwilling to, comply with rules in a homeless shelter, or they may be paranoid and refuse to accept help, etc.

I'm not really knowledgeable about the issue, but my understanding is that if a family member, or sometimes the judicial system, finds that a person is a threat to themselves or others, they can be treated against their will. But otherwise they are "free" to exercise whatever judgment, or lack of same, they have. Hence the people you see here who live on the streets, talking to imaginary companions, and exhibiting various other breaks with reality. As long as they aren't violent and are managing to survive somehow, I believe they are left alone if they want to be. I never really saw people like that in Amsterdam, so was curious if they can be forced to use the social safety net and compelled to get treatment or live in public housing or what.

hetismij

They aren't compelled to do anything. Some don't get treatment, but the majority do. They often live in special hostels where they get guidance and help, but no, there is no compulsion. Here too provided they are not a threat to themselves or society they are pretty much left alone if that is what they want.
There is a well known Salvation Army hostel on the Warmoesstraat, plus a convent which helps such people, also on the Warmoesstraat. A friend of my sons worked with the nuns for a year during her training for social work.

It's true that you see far more of these sad characters on the streets of American cities. I assumed they were unable to afford treatment and so were pretty much left to their own devices.
I'm glad to hear there is a safety net for them even if they choose not to make use of it.

One point to remember also is that the centre of Amsterdam is very expensive, the social housing is all further out, so people would have to travel into the city centre. When my son lived in Amsterdam he lived in a very "colourful" area (off the Wibautstraat), and there were a few mentally deranged people around him. They never made their way into the centre though.
There are homeless in Amsterdam as there are everywhere, but they keep a low profile on the whole, unless they are selling the Street News of course, or are squatting in some building. Though squatters are making more of a political statement, than doing it out of need usually here.

NorCalif

Hey hetismij - thanks again for the explanation! While we do have a safety net here in the US, I think it has a lot of holes in it and people do fall through much more often than they should, in my view.

We lived in the Watergrafsmeer part of Amsterdam near the Ringdijk - not too far from the Amstel River and Amstel Station. DH worked abut 5 miles south of there at the Academic Medical Center. To get to his work, we used to ride our bikes through Amsterdam Zuidoost and Bullewijk and some of the public housing areas in that direction. All I can say is that it seemed, to me as an outsider, admittedly not that knowledgeable about the details of the situation, to be much better than similar areas in US cities.

Thanks again for your patience with my pressing you into service as a one-woman guide to all things Dutch!

We sure are having a beautiful warm sunny fall here in SF. DH still has the Amsterdam weather radar icon on his computer desktop (he used to use it to time his bike rides to work to be in between rain squalls) and he says Amsterdam has been having a very rainy fall. I know you live some ways from Amsterdam but probably having the same weather? Anyway, yet another reason you need to come visit. Although when a Dutch friend of ours came to visit a few weeks ago, he hit the weekend of the first rain here since May! So maybe I should be careful about letting you Netherlands-dwellers bring your weather with you. ;->

Take care.

flowerpower

Palenque,
Great thread - especially for those of us who have never been to AMs and will be going in 2010 - several nights on each side of a major hike to East Africa.

Are you familiar with, or perhaps someone reading this with the Hotel Estherea on Singel Canal (may have mispelled one or the other -or both) I have found a good price of $257 for a double room canal view, in light of some of the prices I've seen way over 300-600 a night.

If anyone has stayed there I'd love a recommendation on a room preference - a number maybe that I could request. We are both very tall and I try to find something that I don't have to duck walk through! I realize in Europe the rooms are small but we've been lucky in our travels to find out from folks which rooms may be suitable for height issues (though we are taller than fatter, haha)& enough room for some comfort. We won't have anything more than two duffle bags and one small backpack for me and camera bag for dh.
Thanks for any info. And all the great Amsterdam tips!

FP

NorCalif

flower - we had friends from Paris who used to come visit us in Amsterdam every few months and they always used Priceline to find really great prices on hotels (we didn't have room to put them up ourselves in our university-supplied housing for visiting faculty).

Don't know if you're familiar with Priceline bidding? If you are very attached to getting an exact hotel it wouldn't work for you, but our friends just wanted a general area of Amsterdam. If the exact hotel isn't that important to you, I'd give it a try - the prices were incredible.

Our friends were always able to get more-or-less last-minute reservations at what Priceline calls a 4-star hotel this past summer (so heavy tourist season) in the City Center/Museum District for around $70 (US) a night - for a double! I was amazed. We saw a couple of the hotels they stayed at and the hotels and the locations were just fine. One that I remember was the NH Amsterdam Centre hotel on Stadhouderskade right near Leidseplein. You can't of course guarantee which hotel you would get, but it gives you an idea of the type that they consider 4-star - look up the reviews on TripAdvisor to get a feel for it.

NorCalif

P.S. I'm not all that familiar with Priceline myself and never used it in Amsterdam, so I'm not guaranteeing you could get the same results. Maybe the fact that their reservations were always sort of last-minute actually helped them get a good price. I don't know. But compared to the "list" prices for hotels, I found the prices they got pretty incredible, and, as I said, they were always satisfied with the hotels they got - although nothing fancy or special.

LAleslie

Well, I wouldn't chance a last-minute reservation in Amsterdam if it's summer or early fall. The reason last minute rooms are cheap is obvious: they're trying to fill them at the last minute when all the wholesalers dump their blocks of unsold rooms, or boutique hotels haven't sold out.
Usually the hotel Web sites themselves have the best prices. We booked the Estherea in August for, I beleive, $147 a night, incl. taxes. But it's not a canal view room. We may upgrade when we get there, if possible.
And a correction on Nevada prostitution: it's only legal in some counties, mostly the rural ones, and only in regulated brothels. It is illegal in Vegas.
Los Angeles is currently in the middle of a big brouhaha over pot stores, which have proliferated (many of them illegally) like weeds lately. You are supposed to need a doctor's "recommendation" (whatever that means), but it's easy to get.

flowerpower

NORCalif; thanks for the priceline rec. I have been over on TA and read many great posts on how to go about bidding, and the results..I do not know if mid-Sept is "high season" so I may give it a whirl. There are so many hotels and now we are staying just one night before and after, so perhaps that is the wayto go.

LALes- I tried the website but it was over $250 - did you use the Hotel website,or a discounter ?
and
.. Have a great time on your own adventure!

thanks for the help,
FP

LAleslie

FP: Mid Sept would surely be high season. I used the Estherea Web site, yes. It may be the day of the week you're trying for, or they may have high demand then, or maybe canal view rooms are that much pricier, or a convention's in town, who knows? I would highly doubt that Priceline does boutique hotels there, but I could be wrong. I tried several discounters with no luck. Keep in mind that many boutique hotels have steep stairs and no elevators, if that's an issue. For one night, I would just get a well-placed hotel that's quiet. Some of the chains (NH, Edon, or the American ones, which are pricier) might be the best bet even if they're not always the most charming.
Thanks for the best wishes, and you havde a great time in AFrica too.

Palenque

Re: Hotels - i am certainly not well informed on indvidual hotels but can comment more on the locations. so thanks for the inputs from folks who do know about individual hotels - i seem to always stay in a different and frankly low-budget hotel that probably would not be up to standards of many - but in Amsterdam i am rarely in my room... and one word of warnign however with budget hotels in old buildings where there may be no lift and then you often have incredibly steep twisting staircases to navigate with your luggage - talking about real budget places with no baggage carriers, etc. So if a hotel does not have a lift as nearly every nice hotel has then expect a steep spiraling staircase as these hotels are often in premises so narrow there is no room for a life nor proper staircases i suspect.

Leely2

flowerpower, the evolution of your safari reminds of a thread from a few years ago on the Africa board. You should do a search for "Pop! Goes the budget."

You might as well go big in AMS too.

Leely, a Cheapie