In the streets of Amsterdam, from now on, no advertisements for hamburgers or chicken wings will be seen. Nor for cruises or plane tickets, nor for diesel or gasoline cars. The Dutch city has become the first capital in the world to ban advertising for meat products and fossil fuels. The decision, driven by the GroenLinks (Green Left) and Partij voor de Dieren (Party for the Animals) parties, was made in January but came into effect this May.

I have a love-hate relationship with Amsterdam. Some people seek an idealized, clean, orderly city with perfect houses, clogs, and tulips. And others seek drugs and seeing the prostitutes in the red-light district. I don't like either of those. I'm embarrassed by those groups of men standing around in front of shop windows, joking about whether or not they're going into a hat shop. I also don't like this idealization of the Netherlands as an orderly, methodical place where everything is more beautiful.

There were smiles among the Dutch audience leaving the century-old Concertgebouw concert hall on Friday night. The hall, which looms large over Amsterdam's great museums, the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum, opened in 1888 and is considered one of the finest in the world, especially for its acoustics. Gustav Mahler, although he disliked Amsterdam, considered it his second musical home. On Friday, Catalan talent from both the last and present centuries could be heard. The 101 musicians of the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ludovic Morlot, performed Maurice Ravel (Ziburu, 1875 - Paris, 1937) and George Gershwin (New York, 1898 - Los Angeles, 1937), but also Eduard Tolrà (Vila) Barcelona, 1962), Pau Casals (Vendrell 1876 - Puerto Rico, 1973) and José Río-Pareja (Barcelona, 1973).