Amsterdam is a metropole in miniature. A village masquerading as a city, it is small-town without the small, rural minus the cows, a veritable capital in downsizing.
Everything is within walking distance. The entire city is tangible. Friends fly past on every street corner, dinging their bell. It’s a city where you’ll never be lost in loneliness, yet you can be if you like. And with canals that run circles round you, it’s a brilliant place to get lost.

Like a doll’s house is always better than its grownup counterpart, Amsterdam has charm coming out of its Van Goghian ears. Venice meets snow globe, meets Dickensian village, meets goldfish bowl. A glorious stampot of old, new and everything in between, all wrapped up in a shimmering, watery bow.

And yet Amsterdam is real. There are gables and cobblestones, and the yellow lights that transport you to the 1600s, and then there’s the stench of the red light district, the locals running over your toes as you step onto the cycle path without looking.
The Dutch are known for being blunt. Yet rather than working on this character trait, they market it as ‘direct’. The result is anything from infuriating to refreshing. Amsterdam is a unique blend of civilised and uncivilised that you won’t find anywhere else. People are not polite in amsterdam; they just don’t care. And it’s this insistence on being themselves that makes Amsterdam so comfy. Despite ‘a way with words’, the Dutch are welcoming. Amsterdam feels like your Grandma’s couch (the one with the claret velvet cushions and fringe around the edge). Your granny may tell you you’ve got something green stuck between your teeth, and tick you off for not wiping your feet, but you’ll still feel right at home.

The Dutch are the world’s original mobile citizens. Driven to make and sell, they are all explorers, and what they like they bring back, so there is always something new to discover. Everything was always available, long before the internet. Amsterdam is a periscope to the world. Its inhabitants want to be disturbed, just as they’re never shy about disturbing. Everything is an opportunity and people are open, forever gobbling up new ideas and clamouring for more. Everything is possible and nothing is a big deal. Who else could turn a vending machine into a dining experience, prostitution into a government tax opportunity?

Sure the universal high street is here too, but only just. What stands out are the unique, crafty shops you won’t find anywhere else. Amsterdam just is. The city oozes history like the foundations do water. Monuments are also homes; heritage is simply a backdrop to cycle in.

The story ‘Eat, Prey, Love’ explores how every city has its own word - one word that gets it entirely, one word that can never be anything else. Though Amsterdam is as international as it comes (indeed most Dutchies refuse to speak anything but English to foreigners), simultaneously it is inherently Dutch. There is only one word that sums up Amsterdam, yet it is a word that is so apt, it stubbornly refuses to be translated. This word is ‘gezellig’, and though English is vast, it requires ten other words to be even a toe dip into the depths of gezellig. Think cosy, warm, welcome, fun, social, convivial, homey, intimate...

Just as Citizen M brings gezelligheid to the world, this intro to Amsterdam is also a quest; a call to action to us all to understand gezellig; a call to to the granny in all of us to do hospitality. So to anyone who isn’t yet familiar: Welcome to Amsterdam. Enjoy, be gezellig and pass it on. Kick off your shoes and get comfy.