Brothers Without Borders: Clearly, you've never been to Amsterdam.

This big-budget movie line has been etched into my mind through so many repeat watches. For some reason it gave the city a mystical quality, like some surreal amusement park beholden to the penetrating eyes of reluctant police, and the invasive intents of its tourists.

Tourists like us.

But anyways, Jack Sparrow is now wrong:

Central station was just one stop from our hostel. Our stop was called Sloterdijk,
which is pronounced startlingly close to "slaughter dick."

Flying my Dutch colors in front of this
little castle, turned into a cafe.

Seeing the city, with some of its buildings erect since the fourteenth century, was something I'd never experienced before. I've seen "old": a home my grandfather built, or a historic US monument built on the founding of the country. But something that's literally twice as old as the United States--that's something else altogether.

"Europeans are incredibly racist," I heard in conversation, irony apparent to all, "but it's like a friendly sibling rivalry though, without the vicious qualities you see in the US." This was as we discussed the world cup, which I'm coming to realize is part of a culture from which America has structurally absolved itself.

What is Amsterdam?

Amsterdam is clever trade. We saw walls of waterfront property, undoubtedly sold at outrageous prices. And then we saw walls of waterfront property being built right in front of that waterfront property, stealing away the view and selling it again for the same premium. You'd think the customers would learn. We saw bricked-over windows, remnants of a time where the Dutch government taxed for window space. Churches with entrance fees. And markets all around. Various trinket shops and a number of attractive stores.

A nation without many natural resources, the Dutch have become arguably the best traders in the world.

The channels, almost exactly like those in Copenhagen, were
nothing like Copenhagen's channels.

"Amsterdam was built in a time where we didn't have cars or buses, or even trains. The city was built with carriages and foot traffic in mind, so there are millions of tiny shops all over. We have new technology now, but so many of the historic buildings can't be torn down, so little shops are here to stay."

The city has the best mass transit I've ever seen. No matter the time of day, car traffic was sparse at worst. Trams were so frequent they often were literally right behind each other, almost moving as one. And there are more bikes than there are people. We were told there are something like two-point-three bikes for each Dutch person.

"If someone steals your bike, you just take someone else's. That's just how it is," Our host in Denmark, Uli, said. It seemed like he was right. I occasionally say a bike handle sticking out of the canals.

Walking past one of the many "Coffee
Shops" in the city.

Amsterdam is tolerant. With an extremely conservative government, many things are illegal. But tourists and locals alike enjoy the Red Light District's attractions, the 'Coffee Shops,' which sell much more than coffee, and the various 'Smart Shops' that sell other mind-altering substances. With incense on the side, as if to legitimize the store front.

When we went through the Red Light District, it was appalling to see the number of children running through like it was an amusement park. And it was in many ways. One prostitute knocked more aggressively on her tiny door, whose glass windows reveals her scant clothing and minimal furnishings that still cost 150 Euro per day. She knocked on the glass hard, to get Wyatt's attention. He jumped, and made a face at her. She pointed and laughed. Everyone joined in.

Unreal.

Amsterdam police ride through every part of the city wearing highly reflective clothes, mounted either on horses or BMW motorcycles. Motorized scooters buzz every which way, weaving between bicycles and miniature cars.

Amsterdam is WiFi. As if they live in the 21st century, something which parts of Denmark refused to do, there was widely-available and free WiFi. And up that same vein...

Amsterdam has showers and separate toilets.

Yes, this deserves a large-sized, centered frame. We were that stoked about the revelation.

Throughout our stay in Denmark, we encountered "wet toilets." Basically, it's a toilet right in the middle of your closet-sized shower, and you have to squeegee everything off, and it's a huge confusing mess. And often quite dirty too.

We wandered around town, across canals, down alleys, inside the tiny room-sized shops. The Dutch don't have the inherent beautiful looks we saw in Denmark. The people looked more like US citizens. Portlanders, that is. The abundance of bikes probably helped. Bikes outnumber cars in Amsterdam at least five to one, by my estimate.

Pardon the scattered thoughts. Even without partaking myself, the haze of various-colored smokes weaved through the air at eye-level, through everyone's throats, into our voices. And the drinks keep coming...

Najlaa and Faisal, two of our new friends.

We met two Iraqis in Amsterdam. Childhood friends, who met together to travel around Europe. They are called Faisal and Najlaa, into whose path ours intersected many times throughout our short stay in this surreal city. Faisal works in hospitality, and Najlaa was a recent graduate from a university in New Zealand where she's been living most of her life. We exchanged conversations, bought each other drinks, and shared songs and poems among ourselves.

Staying at our hostel, spending time on the base floor, we met a zoo of youngsters passing drinks and other things around. And guitars--we sat outside, a group of twenty or more even, guitar and beat box, singing voices, and a list of post-adolescent nostalgia to go through.

Again, every city thus far has given us a friend, and generally someone not from the area.

We weaved through the alleys and streets of Amsterdam, vaguely meandering towards the Van Gogh museum, with that as our final destination. It was warm. Sunny. We sweated, and I abstained from buying chocolates for Ayumi on that first day in fear that they would melt. We talked sometimes, but after enough mazing through the dead ends and winding paths we converged on silence...

Chris and the three of us, in Museumkwartier.

Until I heard form Aryan "OH! TRAIL BLAZER! OH!"

My head snapped to him. Then to where he was pointing. And there he was: Amsterdam has a population similar to Portland, and so we can all blend in pretty well (except for the obvious tourism flags). And the fellow Aryan pointed at looked like just another one in the crowd... except for his T-shirt.

And thus, we met Chris. He's on a tour of Europe before he changes careers, from geography to business management, and gave us a lot of insight into traveling the area. He's been train hopping from city to city, never taking a trip longer than a couple hours, and had visited much of Europe by the time we met him. He agreed to wander with us towards the Van Gogh museum, and to have a bite to eat with us too.

I find this city lending me some power from the earth, just like Chicago did. You can feel it emanating from every alleyway, every centuries-old building, every algae-green channel and rusty bike handle protruding from it. Every vague haze you walk through, and every Dutch conversation in passing writes a song over the very language itself.

My first real Banksy sighting.

There are probably those who might think "a city is just a city." These are the people who dissociate themselves from the world they live in. Probably the real intellectuals. For me, it's magic. I live in Portland because it gives me a particular energy. I can feel it every time I return home, like adjusting to the temperature of a lake.

And when I'm in a place like this, I can feel the energy of the city. It's flowing through me. And it's so good to feel that energy flow through my hands as I write again. A long-departed friend, since starting to work as a software engineer.

Now we're reunited.

Crooked buildings.

A friend of mine named Mike once gave me a small pocket notebook, just in case. I never really used it except occasionally, though I've sometimes been grateful to have it on hand. During this trip though, I've filled half of it.

And of that half, most of it has been in Amsterdam.

If nothing else, just remember that a city is not just a city. Only from people who can't appreciate Jazz will you hear that. As if to brief us on that lesson, the Copenhagen Jazz Festival primed our minds to be ready for the improvisational beats and sometimes-discordant tunes that come with each city.

Bicycle bells. 50cc engines popping by you. A giggle. And those Dutch conversations.

This is not just a city...