Seeing Amsterdam through its smoke and inhibitions

By Irin Carmon, Globe Correspondent, 06/15/03

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AMSTERDAM - The student's Amsterdam is very nearly a rite of privileged passage: the long weekend of drug tourism spent befuddled on the canal belt, the spring break of giggly tiptoeing through the Red Light District. After under a week of drinking in the glaringly lit, low-grade coffee shops in Dam Square and sweating in the stadium-sized clubs in Rembrandtplein, the thinking goes, you've been there, done that.

So what am I doing in Amsterdam for six weeks?

I'm living in an apartment situated where two canals meet in Westerpark. This residential part of the city is better known for its middle-class families with young children than for its hash bars. I share quarters with John and Linda, two fellow researchers for "Let's Go: Amsterdam 2004," and a constant influx of guests from the States who arrive, sleeping bag in hand, to crash on our floor for a taste of hedonism. We give them a choice, unapologetically laid out in advance: Pay for our food or pay for our entertainment. Rents in Amsterdam are sky high.

We wake and stretch from long nights of night life research, and then spend our afternoons at a half-dozen museums and sights, updating the listings for accuracy and rewriting them for style. In the evenings we try out new cafes and restaurants, comparing notes on cheap ethnic eateries and hyper-styled international kitchens. Even the Dutch seem uninterested in their own traditional cuisine - aside from the delicious pastries we consume daily - so the choices are unending.

Jesse, a "Let's Go" managing editor, put it simply when he came to visit: "You guys have it made." He reminded us how different our jobs, as city-guide researcher-writers, were from the average "Let's Go" country guide gig. They travel alone from city to city, hostel to hostel, without the luxury of a canal-side apartment or fellow researchers to gild the journey.

That's not all that makes our job slightly extraordinary. After all, Amsterdam is a city without hypocrisy, as one professor put it before I left school, adding that the local attitude can be summed up with: "Why ban it when you can tax it?"

So it is that Linda, dainty and fresh-faced, fills her notebook with pages on the live sex shows and brings a tape recorder to Cannabis College for interviews. Coffee shop employees regard our press passes with amusement as we earnestly take notes on the price per gram of ice-o-later hash and the tobacco content of pre-rolled joints.

We already have our spots that we return to. We haven't ignored pleasure-loving, commercialized Amsterdam, as much as most of it makes us cringe now that we know better. We also know the sedate, relaxed city of bridges and canal houses, as well as the Amsterdam of idiosyncrasy and uncommonly kind people. The compactness of this city means that each of these sides and more can be walked in a single night, if you're paying attention.

Here's a typical night, bearing a strong resemblance to last Friday: We begin on Marnixstraat, a refuge of good taste just around the corner from the tourist-crammed square of Leidseplein. I researched Leidseplein my first week, stolidly socializing in the types of bars where the waiters wear pirate shirts. It is these classy, well-designed spots, lined in a row, to which we voluntarily return. Weber (Marnixstraat 397) is a more chill neighborhood stop; the scene at silvery Kamer 401 (Marnixstraat 401) is ideal for a pre-party drink; Lux (Marnixstraat 403) is packed with glossy expats eyeing one another.

Nearby is the famous Melkweg (www.melkweg.nl), or Milky Way, named after its location in an old milk factory. It's one-stop shopping for live music, photography exhibits, and club nights, including the beloved, disarmingly polyglot Que Pasa Latin night every Thursday. Arrive before 9 p.m. for the delicious Eat at Jo's (Marnixstraat 401), a restaurant inside the complex run by the genial Mary Jo, an American expat who first came to the Melkweg when her musician husband played the stage. For music and parties, go around the corner and enter at Lijnbaansgracht 234a.

On our way to the next destination, in the Nieuwe Zijd district, is Abraxas (Jonge Roelensteeg 12), the best coffee shop out of the dozens we have researched. The interior is clean and restful, the friendly staff goes beyond the call of duty to help you, and there's 20 minutes of free Internet with purchase in a city where public Internet is scarce and overpriced.

We head to the smoky red NL Lounge (Nieuwezijds Voorburgwa 169), guarded by a massively muscled man who turns away the staid middle-aged Americans in front of us, claiming it's Dutch-only, but lets us in "if it's only the three of you." At 1 a.m., they move the plush furniture for dancing. The Dutch may not win any contests for dance skills, but at least they are uninhibited.

At 4 a.m., we walk home across the canal belt along the Herengracht canal, past the famous Golden Bend's luxury 17th-century homes, through the gallery-laden, bourgeois charm of the Jordaan. We reach Westerpark, having crossed the entire city in well under an hour, and crawl into our beds to rest before starting it all over again tomorrow.