Culture in Europe

The biggest culture difference I noticed in Amsterdam is the integration of the red light district. In America a place like the red light district would be regulated and people under a certain age certainly would not be let in. Here however it's just like any other area of town. It's so easy to get into that when we first were roaming around the city our first night we accidentally ended up in it. Once we knew where it was you could walk one block over and that street would have wholesome restaurant and cafes up and down the street rather than bars and shady glass doors. To simply have this integrated into the thread of a city is very different to what one would expect to see in a similar area in America.

Other just overall differences: free water is a wonderful and under-rated American thing, ice is a good thing, and trams are integrated into traffic patterns differently in every different cities infrastructure which is cool to compare (and may not be cultural buuut oh well).