Amsterdam..stuff dreams are made of

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Talar's Flaming Absinthe Lesson

OK, so maybe that’s a little too dramatic, but the way we were talking about the forbidden city, one would think there would be a genie at the train station welcoming us and offering to make our three wishes come true. Well, there was no genie, but our first impression of Amsterdam was far from disappointing. The 5 minute walk from the train station to our hotel let us feel the pulse of this city.. and It was alive and kicking! People walking around everywhere (even though it was raining), colorful shops, bars, lots of canals and even more bicycles. Our hotel was a street over from the infamous red light district.. We were a little worried that it may be a little too shady, but the location turned out to be perfect. Hotel Luxor (not in any shape or form related to the one in Vegas), was on a walk street (no cars) pretty much in the heart of the city. We were able to get a room on the upper floor (no street noise), and were pretty happy with our selection. Probably the only complaint was the creaking beds... boy they were loud.. It would wake you up from your sleep everytime you turned over.


We stayed in Amsterdam for 6 days and it was everything we thought it would be and then some. The coffee shops were everywhere and walking in and buying the ganja was as common as walking in to buy a cup of coffee. The white widow, Northern Lights and even the AK48... were all on the menu. We did walk around the red light district and as much as you know what you are getting yourself into, it was still weird seeing women, some of which were not naturally born women, standing in little store front windows in less than bikinis trying to lure customers to their “room”. The “rooms” weren’t much bigger than prison cells...furnished almost exactly the same way. Although we did see a handful of gentleman walking in or out of the rooms.. Most seem to be doing the window shopping thing. It is definitely a tourist attraction..and worth a walk through.


We did visit the typical must see’s in Amsterdam, (and some not so typical ones)


The Anne Frank House- All the furniture and the belongings of the eight people in hiding was confiscated by the SS soldiers when they arrested them..so the place was pretty much an empty couple of rooms..there were couple of walls that were kept in tact and Anne’s original diary was on display. It was worth seeing..I think everyone comes out of the attic thinking the same thing.. Can’t imagine how eight people managed to live there for 2 years! And the sad realization that after all that sacrifice their fate was no different than the others who were murdered. History has repeated itself so many times..and it still does.. just when we think there are too many civilized, powerful nations..and surely we couldn’t sit back and allow genocide take place in this day and age.. But we do..there is “ethnic cleansing” going on in Darfur right now..It's pretty eye opening the permanent fingerprints WWII has left on most of the countries we have visited thus far.


The Heineken Brewery-David scored here..we each got 3 beer tokens with our paid admissions and since Talar and I are not much beer drinkers..David demonstrated his talent, ignoring the objections of his sore liver, and successfully consumed 9 glasses of ice cold Heinekens. It was only noon.


The Rembrandt House- Talar sat this one out, it was raining outside and she chose to rest at the hotel. (She was the smart one). David and I asked our hotel girl how far of a walk is the artist's house from us and she said...”Oh five minutes”, well we soon found out everything is “5 minutes” in Amsterdam. After a 15 minute walk in a hurricane type weather..it was pouring rain and the wind had picked up, we finally spotted the house. After shedding our rain jackets..(Debbie and Mike- My Christmas present has saved me from being drenched sooooo many times, Thank you!!), we did a walkthrough through the house. It was pretty cool seeing where Rembrandt ate, slept, painted and sketched.. Although the house had been sold and lived in by several other people since Rembrandt, the city finally took over and tried to reconstruct it to exactly how it was back in the day down to the very interesting beds..apparently Rembrandt's maid had her bed in the kitchen..there was also over 50 of his original paintings on display..so I suppose it was worth the rainy walk. There were no signs prohibiting taking pictures.. So I took a few before getting scolded by the lady..”no pictures”.. About a minute after that.. David got too close to one of the exhibits and the alarm went off..well the museum lady decided we were trouble and proceeded to be on our heels for the rest of the tour.


The Hash and Marijuana Museum-not your conventional museum, but worth the $5 Euros, just because you won’t come across too many of these. It was a fairly small space with the history of the plant and its uses..One of the most interesting parts was seeing the places people had hid it (but had gotten caught). Inside a fake penis, inside a sole of a shoe..pretty funny. The museum also had it’s own private garden..pretty sweet.


The Torture Dungeon- We weren’t quite sure what to expect..a hunted house maybe? We were ready to get scared our pants off, but the place was more like an interactive museum and a quick history lesson of the Spanish Inquisition. It was ok..and the hour and a half passed by very quickly, I’m glad we got lucky with discount tickets..I don’t think it would have been worth paying 18 Euros per person.


Amsterdam has some great shopping streets..and we got lucky to catch H&M on their after Christmas sale, Talar and I went to town! We were able to pick up some really cute things for Jaden.


We came across an interesting Amsterdam tradition on our walk back from shopping. It was around 6pm and the stores were closing..all of a sudden we see a mob of people attacking boxes outside a store. It looked like they were looting the place.. Well apparently in Amsterdam stores put out boxes and boxes of stuff they haven’t sold on the street for people to fight over. (As opposed to sending them off to a discount warehouse somewhere.. Which is what we do in the States). So..when in Rome..we joined the mob of people and managed to collect bunch of crap..When we came back to the hotel..we realized some of the stuff was actually kinda cool.. Talar scored with a pair of wooden flip flops..we had booby jelly bellys and a little spinning light toy..which amused us for the rest of our stay in Amsterdam..and from what we hear it continues to amuse Jaden back home.


On our last night in Amsterdam we decided to go back to one of the bars on our street. (We had tried going to a club, but hadn’t worked out so well for us..the damn techno music) We had been to this bar earlier in the week and the guy who worked there seemed really nice and he had invited us to come back. I had heard him talking in Arabic and asked if he was from Lebanon..he turned out to be Egyptian..and we bonded. When we went back, this time with Talar, he fell in love with her. So much so that when we were ready to leave towards the end of the night he kept asking Talar to stay in Amsterdam..pretty funny. We had several drinks there and the Egyptian guy even brought us some shots on the house.. (David was getting skeptical at this point about the intentions of this dude), he taught Talar how to make an absinth shot- check out the video-and offered David a perfectly rolled joint, which he refused. We decided it was time to go.. The skepticism was increasing..


Overall, we were satisfied with Amsterdam. The city is so much more than the coffee bars and the red light district. The canals are beautiful, even in the cold, windy weather. The buildings as crooked as they are have an undeniable charm to them. And people in general seem really nice (might have something to do with the readily available magic plant). The food was great and cheap (again may be due to the magic plant). We had some great dishes..our favorite was the pancakes with the toppings of your choice.


It was great being able to spend this time with Talar.. I can’t believe how quickly the past two weeks passed..and it’s already time to say goodbye..Tomorrow she’s heads back home and David and I start our journey back to Vienna..I have a feeling it’s going to be a fairly long journey.

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Comments

[GMoney]

Goa
Can one of you fools call me regarding your solid dates for Goa? Hope you are not being ugly Americans!