Amsterdam is a very nice city, in many ways. About the first time I visited there, I don't remember anything. But that was because I was maybe four or five at that time. Now I spent the New Year's there, and this time I still remember it.
What I did: I checked out works of Dutch master painters in Rijksmuseum (under renovation), which were fine. The line to Vincent van Gogh Museum was too long, so I skipped that. I walked through the Bloemenmarkt (flowers for sale, no big deal) and Begijnhof (peaceful). Anne Frank Huis was again too crowded, and I figured it's probably overrated anyway. The Royal Palace was beautiful with a lot of details to be seen.
We took a subway to a random suburb, which looked nice. Upper midclass, at least. The people were already blowing up the fireworks. The crowds gathered at the main square, the Dam, where a DJ was playing records on stage. Maybe they had planned something bigger but canceled it because of the catastrophe in Asia, because there was no big show or fireworks.
Finally I toured Leidseplein (quite a few restaurants), nine alleys area (lot of small shops), Rembrandt Plein (cannot remember if there was anything interesting), Waterloo Plein (but there was no flea market that day), and of course the Red Lights District.
In the Red Lights District I checked out, in the name of academic interest, a peep show and a live sex show. The peep show was pretty lame. For two euros you can watch a naked woman through a small window for two minutes. The sex show had more content. When I entered the non-stop show, there was a couple fucking onstage. After a couple of minutes they finished and a woman entered the stage. She ran around for a while (I suppose it was erotic dancing, but I could not tell) before stripping, after which she lit a cigar, stuck it in her pussy and puffed smoke with it. Then there was another couple fucking on the stage, a woman who pulled maybe five meters of string from her pussy, a third couple and finally a lady with a banana. She picked three volunteers from the crowd (not me), who took turns eating the banana between her legs. That's pretty much it.
Amsterdam has a lot of brick buildings, canals, bicyclists, tourists, tourists smoking dope, narrow streets and a lot to see and lots of fun. Highly recommended.