Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam, OBA

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. ~Jorge Luis Borges

Meg's personal favorite "tourist" spot in this cheerful rough-cut mariner city, is, da-lah, city library. This is probably in the family blood: we tend to feeling home when we smell books, wherever we go.

Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam was beautifully open on 07/07/07, in American term: July 7th, 2007. It is scented modernly young and rather fresh. The towering building is set between Amsterdam Centraal and a musical academy, only 5 minutes on foot from the station. (Warning: 5 minutes in scurry Amsterdamians' standard, more scampering for a person with relatively short legs.)

So you walk past the sliding door, and enter the lofty five-star-hotel like hall room. Everything is shining, and smells... coffee. Coffee? A stylishly cozy Italian coffe shop resides on the ground floor. (What can one ask for more?!)

CD/DVD collection

Single Study Unit (If you are claustrophobic, do avoid.)
Or you can just hide yourself on the sofa facing to the river-view window.

Borges was right: I must be in Paradise. My way of rating a city is purely based on its delicacy of bookstores and libraries. I have to say, by far, Amsterdam scores very high.