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Published: April 28th 2008
I AMsterdam
cool, huh?
by the way, can you see me there? I'm the black point :P Hello everyone. Lazy Adina is back with a story from the controversial Amsterdam. Unfortunately, I was there only for one day, on one of the last days of December AND a sunny one! Maybe that trip wouldn't have taken place without the help of my good friend Laura and her husband, Jakub. So one sunny afternoon we headed for the highway and in about 2 hours we were there. We parked near Van Gogh Museum, as it was the easiest way to find again the car 😊 Little did we know that the city is quite small (that means we went up and down the streets only on foot). At a first glance, seemed clean and well taken care of. I must say it looked very well organised and it was quite hard to get lost, even with little knowledge of reading a map.
We couldn't see much...just walk up and down the busy street (Sales time). But it was enough to make a first impression: well organised, lively and with some strange smell in the air - something I never felt before and weird, almost annoying - someone made me relax, it was "just" marijuana 😊 Actually, Amsterdam
seems to be a city of "open" gates: open to sex, open to drugs, open to any other thing that is illegal elsewhere. That might get one trying "the forbidden" fruitS - but surprisingly enough, no. People were behaving like everywhere else, just preoccupied by their shopping, personal issues...nothing out of the ordinary.
Little was I about to know that this changes during the night. My second trip to Amsterdam came about 4 months after the first. I went with 2 other trainees - Lina from Lithuania and Karina from Peru. For lodging, we had the luck in staying in another Lithuanian girl's house. We went out and wondered all the streets, until hunger drove us towards the restaurants area. Well, we had fun there...as follows: entered in a restaurant and tried to go up on some stairs, looking for a non-smoking area. One of the waiters stopped us, saying that there's no such thing as "non smoking area" and why were we so surprised, we were in Amsterdam, the city where EVERYONE SMOKES! Muhaha, not funny! So we ended up swallowing delcious pieces of pizza in some small Pizza corner. Maybe we got used to Brussels too much...that
must be.
After we made our bellies happy, we went to the Red Light District. We had to convince our eyes of what the whole world is talking about. We saw on the way "Marijuana Museum", "Torture Museum", "Sex Museum"...and other museums alike. Then...the moment of truth: a long street split in 2 by a quiet dirty channel on which a small family of ducks was trying to find some food. There were all sorts of buildings: tall, small, modern, old style. At ground floor there were "private peep shows", sex shops or even the girls in windows trying to make passer-byes empty their pockets inside. Funnily enough, at first floor/second, there were apartments with people like you and me living in. We had a laugh when we saw at first floor the "girls" in the windows, surrounded by red lights and at the second floor, a girl smoking while trying to paint a landscape. That's what I call ironic.
I have to admit that the "girls" weren't that ugly, some were really pretty. Some looked wicked, some just sad. Some looked sleepy and bored. The guys passing by were staring at the windows and walking slowly as
City center
on one of the canals.. if they were on a night walk on the beach. can't describe the flow of feelings I had..it's just incredible. Even now, after some months, can't describe. Maybe I have to go for the third time to be able to see it's true face and explain to all of you...all over again.
Sunday was rainy and therefore, disappointing. We tried to take some photos around, but Northern Europe looks kind of gloomy to me when it rains. So we went to Van Gogh Museum. I waited for almost 3 hours in a queue, in a stinky rain, but I saw the art of my favourite painer: Vincent Van Gogh. Unfortunately, I have no pictures, as is totally forbidden to even take your cam out of the bag. There are guards everywhere and scream at you if needed! - or simply escort you outside. Gotta say that the museum is very well organised and it shows the life of the artist so simple and pure that makes you cry.
Now, at the end of the story..I want to visit The Netherlands again and discover other wonders..new stories to come sooner than this one!
Enjoy the pictures!
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hello i would like know more about " Rainy Lithuania" i need some Pictures thank you again .