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Published: January 11th 2006
A warning to the grandparents that may be reading this... there may be things that might shock you.
2nd January - our last day of holidays and back at work in a couple days...
Arriving cheerfully early (midday) for Amsterdam we settled in at Bob's Youth Hostel. Pretty well located close to the train station with a 'Grasshopper' bar accross the road and a magical mushroom shop on the corner...selling mushrooms and marijuana and providing advice to those that may need it (i didn't need it.. but i was eavesdropping anyhow! ha!).
Now, I had come through Amsterdam on a Contiki tour just over a year earlier and to be completely honest i do not remember much of it at all.. that is after heading into Anne Frank's house and going on a Canal cruise drinking never ending wine.. followed by cocktails in the back row of a live sex show.. - you gotta do it one right!) it was quite refreshing to be heading back through a little less under the influence.
After throwing things in the room and feeling fresh again we headed out to wander around and get lost in the streets. Among the familiar
sights from the year before we found a skate rink, located the red light district, headed into Anne Frank's house, wandered along the canals, meandered up the main shopping street
It was again quite insightful to venture into the house of Anne Frank, which is located along the canals and was her fathers place of work in the 1940's during the second WW. The place is larger than what you imagine after reading the book (her diary) but again hard to imagine that her family (8 people in total in the end) hid in the secret confined areas of this narrow place for so long just to avoid detection by the Nazis. It is another insane act that humans have had in the timeline of history. Over the time that they were in the secret annex, they had to rotate their routine through the activities of what was happening in the downstairs workplace to avoid being heard... this was done by only bathing once a week, not running water at all throughout the day, not moving about as the floorboards may squeek and having food smuggled to them by the only people that did know they were in hiding
and protecting them. The diary that Anne wrote in while in the Annex was found after being taken as prisoner and was returned to her father, who amazingly survived the ordeal.... Anne, as many people would know, did not.
Changing themes and moving on to other things that Amsterdam is known for.. we head to the atmosphere that exists only when the sun sets and the moon rises.. that's when all the characters come out!.... Long seedy streets lit up with red room (now i would say shop.. but that doesn't seem to equate to the real business going on!) fronts, lights reflecting into the canals, lights reflecting in the bike rims that line up along every railing, illuminated signs advertising sex shops, sex shows, condomerias, people selling themselves and offerings of all sorts on the street corners.. our favourite was from an Indian-looking gentleman taking a shining to myself and Kristy and asking us (while doing a bit of a rumba shake of his shoulders and seductive look in his eyes) if we wanted to 'Shake tonight'!.. to his suprise.. we didn't take up on his offer. Another one was being in the table window of a pub
- taking a break from the world outside) along the red light street and being eyed up and down by a few middle-aged men walking past.. who obviously had us mixed up with adjacent (red-lit) window fronts on offer!... so much so that they came in to see if we would head out with them!.. again we said no, but thank you.
Now the 3rd January - heading back home by train to Paris and plane to London... before taking off though, we enjoyed our last holiday breakfast in Amsterdam by having an English style breakfast in an Italian pizzeria owned by Indians.. pretty mulitcultural, I'd say.. and something you probably wouldn't realize while at home.
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Chris Lamont
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howdy groover
Hi ya Beck I love the blog entries! You brighten up my day and allow me to dream about being over seas again. keep it up mate xx