The first thing we see is a cruise ship peeking through the modern buildings. It’s taller than most of them. The blue and red tell me it’s American.

Amsterdam happens quickly. In a flash you see the graffiti and the architecture Amsterdam is known for. On one side of the train station is the modern harbor on the water. On the other, is the historical city.

Amsterdam feels like a rose. I should say tulip, but a rose has better layers and Amsterdam is a city of layers.

They herd all the tourists into familiar spots. The Dutch make it easy for people to find their way. They are incredibly efficient people, the kind that reserve slots in museums, aiming to get Amsterdam through the day with the fewest casualties. 

Because of this effective herding, I’ve found myself seeing the same bits and bobs of the city. The same curio stores and vintage shops. 

To get to know Amsterdam, one has to dig deeper. 

It’s easy to find your way around Amsterdam, but it’s hard to explore. The Amsterdam natives hate you and everything you stand for. You are an invader, and have already offended them by merely being there. 

Like it’s their fault such a beautiful place exists and they have to live in it.

It is springtime, and Amsterdam is a picture card. Someone once planted wildflowers in the nooks and crannies of the city and they bloom at once filling in the cracks of cement. The streets are tight and crooked; the traveler has to jostle in and out of irregular houses slouching on each other for support. 

The buildings are almost all the same height, but that’s where the similarities end. That and the hook at the top.

Before you notice them, the houses seem like regular townhouses, then you wonder how people got furniture into the upper floors. That’s when you notice the hooks and hoists on the roofs and you marvel for the hundredth time about the ingenuity of the Dutch.

You crane your neck as you count the windows on the canals of the Jordaan and then duck your head as your boat passes under a bridge. The tour guide laughs at you reminding you that you’re 5 feet nothing and the size of a Dutch preteen girl. The bridges afford plenty of room.

The boats are the best way to see the city. One might expect posh polished speed boats and gondola-like pleasure barges to cross the canals, but it’s all children on paddleboards, house boats, and dodgy canoes. 

The canals are clean enough that Dutch parents allow their kids to swim in them.

The Jordaan was named for a garden and it shows. The crooked teeth of the Dutch townhouses jut up from neat streets and green mortar. Moss grows on wood and the damp scent of leaves sometimes fills the air.

Napoleon’s men named this neighborhood. They called it “Jardin”; “Har-dahn” in Dutch became “Jordaan”. I had heard, though, that it had something to do with the river Jordan. The Dutch celebrate Christian-coded Holidays.

Try as I might to break out, I keep finding myself in this layer. In the area where the tourists play. The Red Light district lives here, despite government efforts to move them to a strip mall.

I’m trapped by the canals and waterways in the tourist section of Amsterdam. I read the city is an ogre, hard to grapple with and grumpy.

The next layer out is the Museumplein, where I’d reserved time slots in some of the museums. Places get sold out. Everyone goes to the Van Gogh museum, I went for french fries. The quad was full of people. A girl sitting across my picnic bench quacks at pigeons.

I look south to the next ring of the city, the next place to explore. 

It’s what’s next, but it’s not meant for today.

The Dutch don’t salt their fries, but I do. I’m not Dutch enough to know Amsterdam. I still get herded in with the tourists.

We drank beers on the boat as a cheery tour guide told us fun factoids about the city. How the city has to dredge canals for bikes every few months, how many bridges there are in Amsterdam (2500), how you know a local from an airbnb from the curtains – no curtains = local, curtains = tourist. Very Calvinist.

By the time we made our way back to the train station, the cruise ship had gone. I wonder how much shore time the people on it had. I feel certain they didn’t get the time they deserved.

They aren’t the only ones. Amsterdam is an ogre. Amsterdam is a city within a city within a city. Amsterdam is a place pushed to the edges by its own popularity. The center is a playground, but I can’t wait to explore the fringes.

A bell dings hard. I move off the bike lane as the Amsterdammer yells at me.