There are wonderful things about living in Amsterdam and The Monkey will be listing those, but being a cynical prick he figured it would be fun to start with the worst.
1)Crowds- Amsterdam is not a big city, in fact locals like to call it a "big village," given the small size of the city center, its compactness and the historical preservation of many 17th and 18th century buildings. About 750,000 people reside in greater Amsterdam, yet this is one of the most popular cities in the world for tourists. On a sunny day the city is completely swamped with people (locals and tourists) on Amsterdam's many one way streets with extremely narrow foot paths. If you want space, Amsterdam is not the city for you!
2)Rude Cyclists- I am tempted to write all cyclists here because as a collective they are utterly annoying. When I moved here, the sheer number of cyclists was a refreshing novelty from the car infested cesspool I previously lived (Tampa, FL). But now that I have been dinged at hundreds of times for doing nothing more than just sharing a street walking, they frequently send shivers down by spine with frustration. The typical Amsterdam cyclist is very experienced and confident; resulting is a total disregard for traffic rules. This also leads to the 'get the hell out of my way' attitude- I am cyclist, I rule the roads.
3)Noise- If you live in the city center like we do, this is especially an issue. And this frustration is compounded by weekends and the busy tourist season. If you live in the red light district, I do not envy you as I could not imagine keeping my sanity. During the week there are less people out, but all it takes is a couple drunk people yelling in your alley or from the hotel across to rudely awake you, or keep you up and/or want to pelt them with rotten eggs.
4)The English Factor- So many Dutch, especially in Amsterdam and especially in the city center speak English. So as a native English speaker you might think, what's the problem? Isn't this a good thing? Yeah sure, if you're a tourist here you can enjoy yourself and not have to worry about learning a single Dutch word. But if you live here, how easy is it to learn Dutch if you can walk into a deli, a butcher, the market and get exactly what you want by speaking English? For many, the motivation simply isn't there but it's still important to know the language. If you speak Dutch there are far more job opportunities and you can actually read your bank statements and the random bills the local government loves to send, all the time. Also, the Dutch are cool about you not speaking Dutch if you've lived here under 6 months- "yeah it's a hard language, no problem" they say, "we speak English." But after 6 months many change their tune, "oh, you don't speak Dutch, why not?"
5)Winter and Flat Topography- These things belong together because they are cohorts in creating some general suckiness. Holland is characterized as having a "temperate climate" or "mild winter." And ok, that's true when comparing it with a winter in Siberia, but it still gets very cold here. But generally, not consistently cold enough for fun things to happen, like canals freezing over in the city for ice skating. It also rarely snows in Amsterdam so the city just looks depressing, with gloominess and dead trees. The Netherlands, literally translating to "Low Lands" is basically completly flat. So it's a great country to ride a bicycle but what the hell is there to do in winter? In a nut shell, getting drunk, and this is why the Dutch rank 9th in the world for most alcoholic countries. Thank goodness the beer is cheap!
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