I AMsterdam

My break begins as follows…I had to wake up at 5, catch a 5:30 bus to the train station and get on a train to Pisa at 6:15. In Florence Kirsten, Matt and I almost got on a train to Siena, but thankfully switched literally last min. Oh yeah Kirsten and I ran into Matt at the Perugia train station. From Pisa we got to the airport for out 12:30 flight. We took Ryan air…which was actually pretty decent, except for their landing. Every time we landed I felt like the tip of the airplane crashed into the ground. It was intense. Anyhoo I of course slept on the plane till we got to Eindhoven. From Eindhoven we took a bus…. scratch that…we ran to a bus that was almost leaving to Amsterdam. There we were dropped off at the Amsterdam train station where we went to a tourist office to get tram tickets. We took tram number nine to where we thought our hostel might be, near the zoo. We made it to the hostel and lugged ourselves up the steepest stairs ever. I was literally climbing the stairs like a latter. Apparently most of the buildings in Amsterdam were narrow because there was a time when people were taxes by the width of their house. Intern rich people had wide homes and poor had super narrow homes. The hostel was nice, except there was little room to move in the room. We had a balcony though, and I was the brave one to step on it. Our other two roommates didn’t show up yet so we decided to go out and explore the town. There was a large fair in the center with the best smelling baked goods ever. Remember the Dutch invented the funnel cake…so you can only imagine. The rides were super expensive so we just admired the pretty colors. Kirsten was craving a beer and a sausage dog so we walked around forever to find the perfect place. We ended up landing in this small joint called “remember us” which was cute but I don’t remember where it was. The bar tender told us of a great club called Escape, which we also was recommended by some other random people. So put that on our list of things to do. Oh yeah how could I forget I had an amazing hambuger! Yay no more Italian food. Lol. We walked around some more and then we looked around and realized that there was a lot of guys around and no women. Then they were…the windows. Lined by red lights were large pained windows with woman dressed in their underwear waving and winking. We accidentally found ourselves in the red-light district - The red-light district is actually a HUGE area of Amsterdam, most of which don’t have the prostitute windows. I always thought that there were a couple of sleazy streets that had them, and didn’t realize that the district was actually a city district. Anyhoo, the girls were surprisingly normal looking. There were different types of girls depending where you were and what time of day you went. For all you curious people out there…the girls rent the rooms by the hour ranging from 100-150 euros for 8 hours…good ones make 500-1000 euros a day…they are apart of a prostitute union called the Red Thread…Most of the woman are trapped in debt, like the extra money, or need the money to raise a family…the oldest prostitute was rumored to be in her 70’s…ewwww. There were girls hanging out, girls winking, girls eating lunch and dinner, girls talking, girls putting on make up, and really sleazy looking guys occasionally leaving or entering the room. The going rate is 50 euros for 15 min. Kirsten and I just wanted to have 15 min with a prostitute to interview her. Lol. To end our night we walked past a sex museum…it was only 3 euros and some of the most funny shit I have ever seen. I was standing in front a glass case of pornography from the 20’s when an old man turned to me and said “see we had fun too.” I didn’t understand him at first cause of his thick Irish accent but when Kirsten told me what he said I couldn’t star laughing. Wow what an interesting first night of my break.

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