So, here is Amsterdam.
1. We are arriving. The plots of land are separated from each other by the channels.
2. The airport surprises you with the fact that the majority of the taxis in it are the Tesla cars.
3. This photo has it all, everything that characterizes Amsterdam: the channels, the flowers, the bicycles, the gingerbread houses.
4. It is nice near the channels.
5. The architecture though is terribly monotonous.
This is one of my main complaints about Amsterdam. The city offers its guests a very rich visual range, so bright that in a couple of hours of walking through the center the eyes start dazzling and the head aching. At the same time the buildings of architectural value are almost absent.
Houses are disgustingly shiny and glossy in the sun, they are all perfectly restored and cleaned with the shampoo. Together with the similarity of the development and petty-bourgeois spirit of commercialism, that emanates from every house, there arises a feeling of the theatre props or a suburban shopping center (those are very fashionable now, so to say, "cities" where each house is a shopping pavilion).
6. А channel.
7. Sometimes you can comes across something original, but it is either ridiculous ...
8. ... or opulent-cake like.
9. However, I am exaggerating. There are some very cozy examples.
10. And sometimes there are very interesting examplars from the different eras.
13. Amsterdam is a city of the future. The electric cars are еverywhere.
The second thing that annoys me in Amsterdam is it's emphasized futurism. All these electric cars, modern architecture, social innovation ... Amsterdam is like an national expo.
Not that I'm against all this, sooner or later, electric cars will get to Saransk, however, a couple of things perplex me.
1)This focus on the technological progress, imputing a particular value to it, anticipation some new life that the progress will provide, all this is just ridiculous. The world began admiring the technological progress а century and a half ago, and during the first world expos it took the form of the mass craze. Smart people laughed outloud at this even then, a century passed but nothing has changed, and if the city is still poking at me with the electric cars like it is something amazing and beautiful, this city is a fool.
2) Unlike in Paris or Vienna, I did not feel the diversity of the cultural backgrounds covering each other here. There is some screaming modernism, there is a decorative past that belongs to the centuries-old past, and there is a void in between. There is no communication, no connection.
14.
The third reason that made me dislike Amsterdam is an excessive number of bikes. This is a trifle compared to the previous two reasons, but it is frankly unpleasant to move around the city on foot.
Bicycles have the priority over cars and pedestrians, they rush to knock down anyone who gets in their way.
The bikes are trudging along in a continuous stream, they don’t give a crap about the rules, they do not forgive pedestrians' mistakes.
Biking has a nature of a mass craze. Many cities have an excellent cycling infrastructure, but I have seen a continuous stream of bicycles only in Amsterdam.
15. This man came to Amsterdam recently. The real Amsterdam cyclists do not indicate turns with their arms, they lumber through the flow of vehicles and pedestrians.
16. It is impossible to take a picture of the city with no bike in it.
17. The names of the streets in the Chinese quarter are dubbed in Chinese.
Everything is all right in the quarter, but they have forgotten to bring the Chinese people there. Apart from 3 or 4 theme restaurants there is nothing Chinese here. Why dub the street names then?
The fact is that Amsterdam trades on its tolerance, as Prague does with its beer. And how can you have tolerance without the Chinatown in the city center.
Tolerance is a tourist attraction. It includes the prostitutes quarter in the city center, marijuana and gays. Tourists are invited to go wild, but it all looks pretty vulgar, dull and far-fetched.
This ends the list of my complaints about the city.
Here are a few pleasant pictures.
18. The modern architecture plays on the old style:
19. An old man playing with dogs:
21. Almost Venice.
22. One of the few beautiful buildings in the city center.
23. The local art museum.
There is something in Amsterdam, that is worth visiting, you know.
I stood in front of this painting for about an hour and a half. As a result, I had to run through the Van Gogh Museum very fast, 10 minutes for each floor, or I would have been late for the plane.
I plan to come back to this painting in the fall for one more day.
24. The modern architecture (shot from the car window on the way to the airport).
25. And one more:
I am currently in Innsbruck, it is really nice here.