AMSTERDAM -1

OK, my mouth is open again. I been here 1.5 days and I'm already in love with the place. It has so much energy, it's safe, it's clean and it's totally different than any other city I've ever seen. I love all the canals, yes of course I've seen millions of pictures and movies and documentaries about this city, but once here I reaaaaaally like it. Today I took the canal taxi all day to get acquainted with all the canals and learned a few things. Many houses are really crooked, it's funny as they look like models, not real houses. The energy in the city is great, is positive, vibrant and definitely crazy. I think the Dutch people are a bit unusual, they sort of have an aura of "i don't care" but in a good way. I really wonder how many of them don't shower in days, I bet many, today the bus driver smelled like dutch cheese, gross!!. Women in Europe (even in Paris) don't seem to know what a brush is, but they still look good. The Dutch men have the nicest eyes I've seen, big and blue but a strange blue and the women are tall and rough looking but striking, very angular faces. Everyone speaks English and so far I've found the people here very friendly and polite and unpretentious. The language is nice too, not as rough sounding as German but apparently is a "rude" language, several people - dutch and other Europeans say the same and all the new residents say it's very hard to learn.

there are thousands of little bars and cafes and so much design...Paradise. Dutch design is world renowned and the typography is really something, I've taken many pictures of posters and stuff it's good material to show clients and students!

Today I went to a super cool cafe/restaurant/bar and as I was leaving a guy stopped me, he was, you were my teacher at Emily Carr. And yes, he was my student about 4 years ago, he has been working in Amsterdam for 3 years, and tonight he was moving to Geneva where he got a Creative Director job....cool no? I like to think that I had even a little bit to do with his education, he was a good student as I remember.

Also, my friend Mariana has a sister Rina who lives in Amsterdam, we met yesterday for a coffee and we got along and her and her better half Koen, very graciously invited me to stay with them for these 3 days, so of course I accepted, there is nothing better than seeing how "real" life is in the different parts of the world. What's amazing, and I've always found that when traveling is that people are the same everywhere, I don't understand why then people pretend to be different. They live in a very cute apartment close to Centraal Station and we have been having a really nice time. Meeting people, that is one thing that I really enjoy!

I went to the "Torture Museum", holy shit! it's insane, I felt sick literally. The people that came up with those machines were insane freaks that should have been locked up! The sad thing is that even though we might not use the Judas Chair anymore, torture, murder, death penalty, etc, still exist in our "civilized" society. I wonder how many people were killed and tortured around the many beautiful canals!....yeah, it gives it a very twisted twist.....