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Published: August 19th 2007
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Amsterdam. What a unique city. When I first got here last week, I kept on saying to myself, “how does this city function?” It seemed like everyone just smoked pot all day.
Well, I want to begin by apologizing for not writing in a while. First of all, the site that I use, travel blog, had server problems and about ¼ of all users’ blogs written were lost! I lost more than half… fortunately, I saved them all on Microsoft Word so that when I get back to LA, I’ll be able to upload them again. Secondly, I was in Amsterdam, haha, it’s not easy finding a computer around here. Lastly, I borrowed a book from Dan: Deception Point by Dan Brown, the same author as Da Vinci Code, and I was hooked.
The very first night, I stayed at a Christian hostel. I chose it thinking, “hey, at least it’ll be safe.” And it was, for the most part. Ironically, the Christian hostel was right next to the red light district, and in the same alley, I saw a “coffee shop” (and for those of you who don’t know, Holland is not known for its coffee), drug dealers and prostitutes.
Chinese Restaurant
Every city has a Chinatown. And A'Dam is no different. Lovely, right?
The second and third nights were the absolute worst. A few weeks ago, when I was planning this trip, I had a very difficult time finding an affordable hostel in Amsterdam. I couldn’t find anything under 50 Euros/night for the weekend! So I took a gamble and stayed at this really cheap youth hostel, 20 Euros a night. It was disgusting. I’m so glad I didn’t watch the movie, Hostel, because I’m sure it would’ve given me nightmares. Anyways, Cliff, Dan and I realize why hostels were so expensive this time of year; not only is Amsterdam a very expensive place to travel to, but it was also Gay Pride weekend. NO JOKE. They had a gay parade on boats through the canal.
So the second night at this youth hostel was by far the worst. For the two nights I was at this place, I was having a really bad time. I was surrounded by pot heads, the breakfast f’n sucked (2 pieces of toast and a hardboiled egg, wth). EVERYONE I met there was a stoner (no shit Joseph, you were in Amsterdam). The only way I was able to keep sane was by reading
Art on the sidewalk
It's their form of graffiti. my book at any local park or square. Anyways, the 2nd night… there were supposed to be only 8 people in my room, 4 bunk beds. The whole night, I had trouble sleeping because this loud ass German guy kept yelling (btw, I’m adding German to the list of ugly languages) for no apparent reason. He was drunk. I didn’t want to get up in fear of what was actually going on. Finally, I just had to get up because he was being too boisterous. It turned out to be 8 a.m. When I got up, I saw 12 guys in my room. Like I said, there were only 8 beds, 8 SMALL beds. There were 10 huge, hairy German dudes in their tighty whitties; some were spooning, others were just prancing around... I wanted to throw up. At around 8:30, one of the workers came in and noticed all these homosexuals. He was irate. He was pissed off that all these guys were being so loud. Mind you, this was a ghetto ass hostel that I stayed at. I could’ve taken a whiz on the walls and I probably wouldn’t get in trouble, in fact, it might’ve cleaned the
HAHA
The cat is chilling at a "coffee"shop. This coffee shop is very famous, something like George Clooney and Brad Pitt filmed Ocean's here. walls. So for these guys to get in trouble was a big deal. The worker was mad because half of them didn’t pay and they were ALL like 35-40 years old. It’s supposed to be a f’n youth hostel! Needless to say, I didn’t stay there the next night. As I type this, I have a half smile but at the time, I seriously thought that I would be scarred/traumatized for life, no joke. I was really upset at how poorly shit was run there. It left a really bad taste in my mouth and I wanted to get the hell out of Amsterdam. It was just too liberal for me. But I don’t want to hear shit like, “oh, you’re not open-minded.” Fuck that, you didn’t go through what I went through. And if I were stuck in Mississippi or some super-conservative area, I’d probably want to shoot myself as well.
Cliff and Dan could immediately tell how much I hated being there. I was considering going back to Paris. But instead, I decided to check into their hostel which was situated just outside the city. It was the best decision I made. That day, I rented a bike
and went around the city by myself. Amsterdam has more bikes than people; there are 1 million bikes to 700,000 people, go figure. And bike theft is commonplace. So I had my bike and my book, and I felt liberated as I went through the well paved bike lanes. (On the main streets, there are lanes for cars, trams/buses and bikes; it’s very well structured.) I followed Hansen’s advice and went to the Rjiks museum and checked out Rembrandt’s work: AMAZING! He is now one of my favorite artists. Like Giotto, he’s able to contrast dark and light masterfully. I then went back to my hostel and moved my luggage into a 4 person room. I would be staying with a lovely Puerto Rican family. They had 17 year old boy: Andrea. Andrea loved it when Cliff, Dan and I took him to the red light district, haha, young boy’s hormones… I’m really glad I stayed at that hostel because it salvaged my trip. I was really turned off by how the other hostels were and it made me realize that although I was saving money at the other places, I wasn’t enjoying my time.
One of my favorite things
that we did in Amsterdam was visit the Heineken brewery. They call it the Heineken Experience. It’s an old brewery that they turned into a museum. It’s awesome! For 11 Euros, you get 3 drinks and a souvenir as you walk through the brewery and “learn” about how beer is brewed. Basically, they brainwash you.
The other being Anne Frank’s house. If you haven’t read The Diaries of Anne Frank, you’re probably a fob. Shit, even students in Korea read Anne Frank. If you go Holland, you should definitely stop by here. I remember my mom would always make me write in a journal when I was younger, especially when we went on trips. It’s amazing to read about the deep thoughts that she had at such a young age; I’d be interesting to read my own journals, and even this journal one day.
I’ve come to really appreciate the Netherlands. If you think about the Dutch, they’ve never really started any trouble. But due to its geographic location, it’s been in the middle of a lot. One of the tour guides summed up the Dutch perfectly: The Dutch are very accepting, a big reason why the city of Amsterdam
Very Educational
+3 beers from tap. is so diverse and that there are so many homosexuals and minorities. And if someone decides to mess with Netherlanders (i.e. the Nazis), they will stand up and fight.
Well, now it’s Rotterdam and then back to London before I head to LA. I’m going to miss Europe, but I definitely won’t miss all of the cigarette smoke, bug bites and the coin-operated bathrooms.
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