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Yes, it’s definitely Americanized. The city took on its Bavarian theme in the 1960s to attract tourists and support its economy. It can’t possibly be as authentic as the real thing.

Thank you so much!

Thank you for watching!

Thank you! We hope you enjoy your trip as much as we did. We also went in the spring, and it worked out well. It wasn’t too crowded, and the weather cooperated.

Very true!

Thank you so much for your very kind words. We truly appreciate it!

I appreciate that!

It’s not only the tour guide who mentioned the colonial history, but the Rijksmuseum with its various exhibits. The sources I’ve seen indicate that the Netherlands engaged in slave trade for over 300 years to support its colonial operations.

@@UnnecessaryTravel I am not disputing that the Netherlands has a colonial past with slave trade. I am disputing that is was a financial success. It has also been scientifically proven, we have still lots of logbooks and port administration. Musea probably like the romantic story, the truth about the wood trade is a bit boring.

300+ years seems like a long time for a financially failing operation.

The biggest things we could have tried to fit into our itinerary if we had been a bit more efficient in our planning was Vondelpark, close to the museums we visited, and North Amsterdam, with a free ferry ride from behind Amsterdam Centraal. The station also has a Sex Museum very close to it that might have been interesting to see. There are really a number of museums that might have been worth exploring. If we had a third day, we would have taken a train out of Amsterdam to visit The Hague. I hope you enjoy your trip!

@@UnnecessaryTravel: sex museum is a tourist trap.

Ah, good to know. We didn’t research this museum much in advance. For any others reading this thread, can you explain a bit more about what makes it a tourist trap?

If you listen again closely to those segments, you will get the jokes. And, yes, I’m certain tourists being irresponsible is the source of many problems there. Amsterdam is a lovely place.

@@UnnecessaryTravel sorry but i don't like 020, i'm more a 030 guy😉

The tour guide actually did mention the pulley system of moving items to different floors. The slanting I'm referring to in this video was sideways, not forward, which the guide said was because of uneven sinking on soft flood land. As for the hoisted items, he didn't connect that with any particular trade. The discussion of colonization was separate. The specified reason for the pulley system was because of tax being levied on the basis of a building's width, incentivizing people to build upward, even if it meant the building would be quite thin, making it difficult or impossible to get furniture and other large items up through the ground floor and up inside the building.

Hear, hear. Bedankt Den Uitvreter. Ik heb je uitleg hierover (VOC en WIC) vaker gelezen. Het gros van de mensen blijft dit verhaal geloven. Jammer.

@@UnnecessaryTravel Amsterdam was planned city from when it stopped being a fishing village, it was planned as a trade city. So canals were dug and all the plots werer narrow to get as many merchants as possible direct access to the canals. Their living spaces in the same house were secondary, that's not why they were canal side. So what you see at a boat tour is the private merchants houses who were not allowed to trade with Asia or the Americas but who started to fully dominate the European trade in the 1590's and that's where the prosperity came from. The VOC had quite a huge warehouse in Amsterdam, with generally more expensive stuff per volume and weight, but that was outside the city centre and still only a tiny bit of floor space for storage in comparison. Amsterdam tour guides don't have to do an exam or something, and often just make stuff up or follow the fashionalbe and simplistic narrative that the Dutch Republic got rich from colonialism, particularly popular with tourists from former or current empires. The Dutch had started modern capitalism, with upward social mobility, freedom of religion and print, high literacy, high trust in paper and institutions, a de facto central bank for high trust in money and low interests, industrialized shipbuilding with windmill power, specialized small crew merchant ships, and a broad big spending middle class. It was the first modern society and economy no one could compete with for over a century. The colonial past is a dark edge to a quite bright history that doesn't need to be sugarcoated, but these tour guides should not make Amsterdam far less interesting than it really was.

Thank you for sharing this information and perspective. The guide mentioned a number of positive things along these lines about the origins and evolution of Amsterdam. I think the point he was making was that the negative aspects of history must also be acknowledged. It wasn’t to negate the many great things about the city and the Netherlands as a whole.

Thank you!

Thank you!

We stayed at the Beachfront Inn. The view of the ocean was fantastic. However, the floor in our room was inexplicably dirty, like it hadn't been mopped in a while. According to online ratings when we did our planning, this was one of the better options in Brookings. However, next time, I'd try a different place just to compare and hope it was better for cleanliness. We do have a food recommendation, though. We enjoyed Khun Thai. The food was good, with decent-sized portions, and the service was quick. We went there twice during our short stay. We also went to Zola's on the Water, which is popular among the local establishments, but it was perhaps overrated. The decor was interesting, and the food portions were huge, but as far as tastiness, it was just average, and the service was half-hearted. Not terrible, by any means, but I don't understand why it's listed among the top things to do in Brookings. It would have been fine to skip.

@@UnnecessaryTravel Thank you for the recommendations. We went ahead and booked a room at the Westward Inn. The Beachfront rate was so much more expensive with mixed reviews. Seems like there are mostly motels in the area. Hopefully it will be fine! 🤞

This is useful info for those who are visiting from other states. Thanks for sharing. Since we live in Oregon, it was pretty straightforward for us, a 6-hour drive.

That’s a nice situation!

Haha, only because I’m forced to by society.

Thank you! Not all stations. Just the bigger ones with more passengers have this setup. There will be signage in English. You'll need the lines for "All Passengers." The ones for citizens of Venice say "Priority Veneziaunica."

Not sure how affective it was.

Ha! Mission accomplished! FYI, that’s a mashup of two pieces of stock music, one with Enigma-style beats and another of Gregorian chanting.

Thanks for meeting me there!

It was like being in an Emily in Paris episode.

That would have been the end of me!