Hey there peoples,
This is officially my first post to our little website and it has been quite the first couple of days to kick off our trip. Amsterdam is a winding city, filled with locals and tourists alike who all seem to be looking for the same thing, drugs or sex. Maybe both. Probably both. It's getting to these desired objectives which can be tricky since the bicycles and cars alike drive around as if they're the only ones on the road, making the pedestrian the lowest form of life on the transportation food chain. This makes the shopping streets here in Amsterdam which are paved with intricate coblestone designs and allow no vehicles, a very welcoming addition to the city.
When not looking for sex and/or drugs, there are some other things to do. There's a bunch of museums, which we only had time to visit one of on this short stay. We were going to visit the Anne Frank house, but it was overun with school children when we attempted, forcing us to postpone that visit until we come back. Oh I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "But Markus. I don't care about the museums. I want to hear about the sex and drugs!". Well, alrighty then. Here we go.
THE RED LIGHT DISTRICT (rated NC-17 due to sex content)
When we went looking for the red light district, we didn't know quite what to expect. It's one of those things you've pictured a few times after some descriptions from "previous customers", and what I had pictured was some seedy looking back alleys with big neon lights and pimps calling out to people yelling that inside their estblishment was the, "best damn pootang this city has to offa." What we found instead was not far removed from the shopping streets mentioned previously, except that the merchandise in the windows were human, scantily clad and trying to not look as if they were about to die of boredome. Every lady has her own little boothe, surrounded by lights, and the booths seemed to be clustered in groups of 6 with 3 windows on top of the others. The lights surrounding these ladies are very bright and are used, as far as I can tell, so that the line between the ugly and beautifull hookers gets blurred a little. Making eye contact with these girls is dangerous because if they think you're interested at all, they begin to bang on the windows and start motioning with seductive body language. I think they even have the ability to open their little booth-like windows and can start to follow you making you feel just a little awkward.
Anyways, as far as drugs go, you can pretty much walk into every third store and find weed in smoking or pastry form. This means that anyone looking to get high can do so in about 2 minutes flat, unless they're already high, in which case people just wander around with a mixture of confusion, mirth, then confusion again.
Well, I have to sign off now. I'm sure that I'll get better at this writting thing again as time passes. Being in Computer Science has the drawback of leaving you with puny and pathetic english language skills, but if you ask me to encode this message using the Huffman procedure, that I can do. God I'm useless.
Take it easy everyone,
Markus
Okay, so I haven't slept just yet; I reinstalled the blogging software, and things seem to be working again. We'll have the boring default layout for now. Later, cool kids.
We're at the end of our second day here in Amsterdam. It's past 5 in the morning here, but I'm restless and had a fair amount of sleep earlier in the day -- getting over the jetlag will probably be a bit harder than I thought.
As for Amsterdam, a wide-eyed, innocent Canadian like me has a hard time providing context and comparing Amsterdam to anything else I've seen; I've never been out of North America in my life. But, I'll give it a shot! Amsterdam is liberal. The attitude here is mellow. Accepting. Anything goes, and you won't really get judged for it. At least, that's how things are here in the hostel; there are so many backpackers and travellers here that getting the local side of things is difficult; you're a dime a dozen, and I think I've met more Canadians than anyone else here at the Pig.
But within the hostel traveller world (and likely this hostel in particular), everyone wants to meet everyone. It's like frosh week all over again. The hostel, in downtown Amsterdam, is a narrow storefront-type building you'd find in any city. Walk in, and you'll see a bar, a chillout area by the main window (with tons of cushions and very short tables where people smoke up regularly), a pool table, and the check-in desk. And everyone seems to be having a great time. The "just relax" attitude permeates the hostel, and the whole city.
Example: I wake up this morning, and step into one of three shower stalls out in the hall. (Very spartan and tight, of course.) Close the door, turn on the water. Then I hear the door to the stall on my left open up, and what sounds like two people walk in. And shortly afterwards, they're going at it, with the occasional bang against the wall or an escaped sound. And it doesn't really seem to bother me at the time; it's just par for the course, and seems almost natural and expected. Go ahead! Enjoy your vacation! Van Gogh museum, or shower sex romp, what's the difference?
Well, we picked number one. Visited the Van Gogh museum yesterday, which is actually filled with way more non-Van Goghs than his own works...it's very interesting to see the paintings and other influences Van Gogh had. Quite a few Monets in there, actually, which I was a big fan of. And they had some major Van Goghs too, of course, like the self-portraits, the sunflowers, and the Potato Eaters. I was disapointed that Starry Night is elsewhere, though.
Today, we tried to see Anne Frank's house (too busy, will come back tomorrow at an odd hour I hope), went shopping at a major supermarket for lunch and dinner (which we'll be doing frequently to avoid going bankrupt; also, no frozen meals to be found anywhere, it's all fresh), and made the obligatory curious-and-highly-amused-onlooker visit to the Red Light district. Crazy, crazy place; a whole district of side roads, main roads, tiny little alleyways, all filled with red light-rimmed glass doors with prostitutes either looking bored or trying to catch your attention. The doors are built into the side of otherwise normal looking buildings.
Most of the time, though, we spent chilling at the hostel. Talked to a lot of different travellers; I played chess with an English girl, Markus talked with a guy from Vancouver who's been working in Ireland for a year now (he's the second European Canadian we've met; they both have loved telling new Canadian visitors how things are different). I managed to piss off an American guy who was getting upset at the notion that other people might disagree with his government's views, and he started the conversation. Other Americans we met were great: Markus and I spent a good 3-4 hours drinking and chatting with two girls from Chicago, Molly and Catherine (group picture coming soon!). We discussed many of the differences between Americans and Canadians and they were good sports when we put them on the spot as representatives and justifiers of all things south of the border. They're heading back home soon, but I hope we run into people like them again. (Hope your trip went well, if you're reading this!)
Well, I should go now. It's quite light out and I feel the need to wake up the 41 or so other people in my room as I crawl into bed. We really enjoy reading the emails you guys have been sending so far; once I get the website up and running, you'll be able to put comments on each posting.
Cheers,
We're here! And we're damn tired. So very, very tired. It's true -- it's impossible to sleep on a plane. Markus managed some sleep, but I think he had a few shots of an alcoholic drink, if you know what I mean. (He's a lush! One of my goals on this trip is to paint Markus as a raging boozer.)
Very much the visible backpackers, we were offered accomodations in a very pushy manner five times within the space of a few minutes when we arrived at the busy Amsterdam Centraal station. Followed shortly by an offer to purchase some of the ol' Amsterdam weed. We eventually rented a hostel at the Flying Pig, only a leering hop, skip, and a jump away from the notorious Red Light district. Seems like a pretty cool, laid back place. (Liberal pot smoking laws kind of help things along.)
Not that that's all that Amsterdam's all about. The city is stunning; the streets are very much the idyllic, glamorized narrow cobblestone labrynths from countless Hollywood movies. You look down any intersection and see so much life and activity that we don't even know where to start adventuring.
We'll start in earnest tomorrow, after some sleep! Later.