Amsterdam - better in the morning? Not by much...
I think due to our sheer amout of disappointment with our initial impression of Amsterdam yesterday Nick and I did not bother leaving the hotel until about noon today.
Amsterdam does not look much better in the sunlight. We meandered around trying to decide which museum to check out. I think our indecisiveness stemmed from being worried about having such another negative experience. We stumbled upon a canal tour, which we thought would be pretty safe, so we decided to take that.
It wasn't too bad. It was about an hour, and the boat was pretty cool. It was long and flat and had a glass roof on it so you could see all the buildings. Amsterdam is all built on wood planks and the city is slowly sinking, like Venice. The buildings lean all different directions in some places, I will have to add pictures later.
To be honest, I spent most of the tour watching a little kid on the boat terrorize the people he was with. Some super grungey lookig guy and his wife/girlfriend/mistress. He was wearing a wedding ring and she was definitely not. The kid was throwing his soda can all over and at one point bit the lady's finger. She screamed really loud and then sat in her seat and cried. The kid didn't even get scolded. The guy was like, "are you gonna say you are sorry?" and the kid laughed and spit out a chunk of her fake nail. GROSS.
After that Nick and I saw the flower market, which was really cool actually. It was like three or four blocks of flower venders. They had all kinds of plants, every type you can think of. I saw lots of cacti and thought of dad. There were sooo many different kinds I think he would have wanted to buy them all. I also saw Bonsai trees and tulips and all kinds flowers, some orchids, and venus fly traps, lots of bulbs for every type of flower, all sorts of starter kits, including a grow your own cannabis kit.
We had lunch, the food here is not as good as Germany. Not by any stretch.
We also walked around and found a local market with lots of street vendors. Some of the stuff they were selling was really cool. I liked one stall in particular which sold some really neat clothing. They had the coolest hoodies and jackets I have ever seen in my LIFE. If I had not already gotten my Swatch I would have bought a jacket hands down. But I did get their website for future purposes. In case anyone is interested... here are the jackets we saw. I thought they were AMAZING. I really liked the ones by Gado Gado. SUCH cool clothing.
We headed back to the hotel to rest for a bit, since we walked all over the place. It was about 4, so we'd been walking for about 4 hours or so, minus half an hour for lunch.
One thing to note is that Amsterdam is FULL of bikes. I'm positive bikes outnumber cars at least three to one. So people are used to getting around by bike, on foot, or on the bus/trolly. So things are very crowded as I mentioned in my last post. Plus you have to watch out for tons of bicyclers. Dad, you would HATE it here just because of THAT alone.
Ladies of the night...
Anyway, after a few hours of down time we headed back out in search of food. Nick looked up this asian place that was supposed to be really good. So we headed in that direction. When we stopped to look at a map for directions, the inevitable happened: we realized our restaurant was precariously close to the Red Light district.
We kinda looked at each other... and back at the map, then back at each other.
Morbid curiosity won over.
The decision was made.
The place we wanted to eat had an hour wait so we put our name in for a table and headed one block to the north. As soon as we set foot in the next street over we were greeted with red lights and neon in the shape of busty women.
I promptly ran away.
I stood in the little alley between main streets and giggled like an idiot for a while. I told Nick maybe we should just cross the street, and not walk along the red light district, just to be safe. So we could kind of test the water, as it were. He agreed. So we bravely ventured out from our alley into the Red Light District. And right on through to the other side.
It wasn't that bad. We could see lots of sex toy shops all along the streets, neon sigs of naked women, bars, and LOTS of red lights. The red light district is literally FULL of red lights. Even the street lamps have red bulbs in them.
We went across and over to the next street, which was relatively safe. We went down another block and decided to cross back over through the red light district to the street our restaurant was on. Upon doing so we saw a sex theatre and in the alley there are lots of windows with real live girls standing in them in their lingerie solicing to people. Almost all of them were smoking.
I didn't really see a lot. I was staring with great intensity at the back of the person-ahead-of-me's back. So most of what I saw I saw out of the corner of my eyes. Don't judge me dear reader, I was curious, but intensely freaked out. I wanted to go back again, just for the sake of this blog, but I couldn't do it. Dad, please don't be too disappointed in me, I went to the red light district, I just can't tell you much about it. :p
Nick and I opted to wander in another direction instead, the whole time Nick was teasing me about getting me a lap dance, you know, for the sake of my blog. Jerk. To be fair, I did ask him if he thought they took women clients as well as men, and he said we could go back and ask one. To which of course I freaked out. It's my own fault really. I'm too easy to pick on. : /
ANYWAY. He was just being silly, because we were both sort of embarassed about the whole thing and I think we both respond to awkwardness with humor. It really isn't too different from Vegas I suppose, except they are probably more open about it here.
On a slightly unrelated but just as humorous note, there is a GIANT church right at the end of the red light district. Somehow, neither Nick nor I were surprised by this fact.
That sums it up.
The food was terrible, sadly, and we returned to the hotel feeling more or less bemused but ready to go home. I'm not sure what we are going to do tomorrow but I can honestly say I am ready to come back to the states. I do not care for Amsterdam much although it has been an intersting experience to say the least.
Who knows what we'll end up doing tomorrow, but the day after I will fly home, so that is great news to me. I flew coach on the way to Europe and I am just going to check into upgrading to first class for the flight home. I expect it to be several thousand dollars or more points than I have to upgrade but I want to at least ask. Coach for 8 hours blows, but at least I will have a window seat this time.
P.S. I have also decided to write the Ballad of Tiffani Visits the Red Light District, it would be similar to Monty Python's song about Brave Sir Robin Bravely Running away. Some possible lines include:
"When Naked reared its ugly, tiffani bravely turned her tail and fled,
Yes Tiffani turned about and gallantly she chickened out."
http://tiffanitravelblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/adventures-in-euroland-ballad-of.html
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