If you arrive in Amsterdam and the sun is shining you should consider yourself a very very lucky person. Hence forget that you are a tourist and act as an Amsterdammer. How? Just enjoy every sunny second! A good way of doing it is relaxing in the parks:

The famous and central Vondelpark, with its film museum and nice bars on the water:

Westerpark with statues in the lakes and the former Gas-Fabriek: an industial building turned in bar and cinema.

The romantic and old Sarphatipark, in De Pijp.

Oosterpark, close to the Tropen Museum.

Rembrandt Park, more wilde, quite and relaxing.

Erasmuspark, in the West.

Amsterdam Bos: the Amsterdam forest, with its open air theater and its cheese farms.

And don’t forget to have some sex in the parks.

Ducks!

These wonderful birds are the real citizens of this city. They are everywhere. Take your bike for a daily ride and watch them having a meeting in Vondelpark (where the usually discuss about foreign policy and coffee shops), along the river Amstel where they love to have water-picnic or into a painting of Willem Maris.

You can ignore them, think they don’t care you but this is not true! They miss you when you go back to your country inside that enormous duck called Transavia or KLM or whatever! Two weeks ago I risked my life for two of them: a mother with her baby duck were crossing a big street located in west Amsterdam: I parked my bike right away and I blocked the traffic. A dutch man smiled to me from his car: my mission was accomplisced. And… maybe you don’t believe… but I did the same thing in the highway A4 near Delft: I saved a mother with 6 chicks. But this is another story.

Anyway, in Amsterdam you will mainly find four different subfamilies of ducks or anatidae:

• Mute Swans (Cygnus olor),
• Egyptian Goose,
• Mallard,
• Anser anser domesticus (Subfamily: Anser)
  

Other common birds crossing the dutch skies are: water chicks (Gallinula chloropus) and the Great blue heron, better known as “the pirate”.

If you are a fan of ducks like me, put your comment. QUACK!