I’m beginning to take for granted things here that I’m sorely going to miss back in the states:
- Street-side cafes and pubs for quick casual drink+eats and people watching
- Incredibly pleasant Dutch people. They’re always laid back, friendly and willing to lend a hand to a foreigner.
- 6′ tall blonde Dutch girls who can not only speak English with a Dutch accent, but also that of a Brit accent.
- Czech girls
- Bilingual and multi-lingual people.
- Being able to sit at cafes and hear people conversing in Dutch, Spanish, French, German, occasionally Chinese.
- Lamb meat, pita-wrapped shawarma.
- All-white suit+pants+shoe combos
- Small streets, very compact buildings make it a tolerable distance to walk from one side of the Centrum to the other.
- Zero car traffic in the Centrum
- No crowded highways.
- Easy-to-use and widely available tram system to save on the walking and get around fairly quickly.
- Incredible amount of daylight in the summer thanks to 52 degree latitude.
- Not being pressured into leaving by waitstaff so they can flip my table.
- Any possible kink you want, you can probably find it here.
- Almost all of the city is easily accessible to bicycles without any psychotic soccer moms trying to run them off the road while holding a cellphone and Starbucks coffee.
- Psychotic asshole people on bicycles who own the roads
- Watching Tour de France live on the telly.
- All buildings are old, made of brick and have more character in their window ledge and hoisting hooks than entire subdivision of houses in the states.
- Train or car ride away to Germany, France, UK. Short plane ride to Sweden, Rome, Egypt.
