Amsterdam - 11/12/07 - 13/12/07

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Oh how to tackle the sensitive topic of Amsterdam for the people reading this journal. Namely, those wonderful two who gave birth to me. Of course the official stance is that we were there for the cultural experience, the museums and the history. So Mum and Dad, if you don't want to hear what's coming, then stop reading now and be safe in the knowledge that I am now very culturally enlightened.

Arriving in Amsterdam was an experience unto itself. We'd managed the airport transfer okay, we'd got ourselves on the right trains into town, and then we were a tad lost. We'd fluked most of it beforehand by arriving in time to ask airport tourist desks or had lovely bus drivers who helped us out. Amsterdam was another kettle of fish, and because we'd heard horror stories we were very careful to try not to give details of where we were staying out. So we had a bit of a goose chase in the station to try to find an open tourist information desk to obtain some kind of map. In the end, Carl was sent off (he's less directionally challenged than I am and actually understands maps and directions) to find tourist information god knows where it was, while I set myself up right by the open check in desk with all my bags in close reach. It felt like Carl was gone FOREVER, and when some random person came over to me and started creeping me out and I couldn't get rid of him or move, forever turned into an eternity. Thankfully Carl came to my rescue relatively soon afterwards and we were on our way around random streets, very lost with all the Dutch names. In the end, we did ask an older gentleman for help as he offered it and we finally got to the Flying Pig Downtown. The smell the second we walked in was incredible. The Flying Pig has a license so that people can smoke in the bar. And people took full advantage of this. And I agree with it, because at least they were in a safe place with staff members around them who were available to help if needed. It just meant that our clothes and backpacks would forever more (well, until we found some strong washing powder) would smell like weed. We checked in almost without hassle and went upstairs to leave our bags, which, thankfully, we could leave in lockers inside the room and didn't have to worry too much. As far as the hostel goes, it was... not especially clean but not especially dirty, it was definitely not quiet with the bar right under our room, and the bathrooms were in a state of sewerage again. But breakfast was good and the bar area was quite nice and friendly, and overall we enjoyed it there. Anyway, there we met Victoria, a lone traveller from the US who was sharing our room for the night. With her, we headed down to the bar, and Victoria shared what she had bought while we had a couple of drinks. We then had a wonderfully brilliant idea to go in search of edible delicacies, and so headed out into the night in search of a coffee shop where we could buy some cakes. We were very sensible and didn't have any more than we thought we could handle, and although we felt really dodgy asking for them (they're not on the regular "menu") we succeeded and sat and ate our cake, drank some juice, and watched as people came in and asked for whatever they wanted, watched while the guy behind the bar weighed it and packed it up and it was all above board. Anyway we sat and waited for the spacecakes to kick in.... and waited... and waited.. and nothing really happened, so in the end we went back to the bar and sat and talked to Canadian Bacon - a very cute bartender from Canada who'd been working there for ages and loved it. In the end, we told him what we had done and what we were experiencing (ie nothing) and his advice (lovely man) was to not anticipate it, to relax, have a drink, have another smoke and let it happen. So we did. Unfortunatley since none of us had any experiencing with rolling our own, our previous smoke had been created using regular cigarettes and filters. When we tried to do that in front of Canadian Bacon, he just looked at us, shook his head, and told us he would not allow us to smoke our weed that way. So he rolled it for us. Halfway through it, the cakes kicked in and we spent most of the rest of the night staring silently at the bar. Carl was afraid of sounding like an idiot when he spoke so he said nothing. I was actually not having a very fun time but also knew it wasn't going to last forever, so I was busy not panicking and trying to keep calm. Victoria was just off in her own little world. Even Canadian Bacon looked over at us at one stage and brought up the fact we hadn't spoken in forever, it was amusing actually. Anyway, eventually when it had wore off enough for us to feel safe about going to bed, we did so, and slept like logs.

If my wonderful parents happen to be still reading at this point, they will now hear all about our actual sightseeing around Amsterdam. It is actually a quaint little town, the canals are gorgeous, the townhouses and boats on the water lining them are lovely. Everything is nearby and walkable, so off we went in search of Anne Frank's house. Unfortunately, as with most entrance fee paid places in Europe, you cannot take photos inside, but I will say that having read and loved the book, having always been interested in the Holocaust and how unbelievably sad the whole thing was, to actually be inside this house where Anne and her family were hidden was incredible. It was actually a LOT bigger than I had expected, you could see the stairs that led up to their attic and how steep they were, you could see carvings and writings on the wall that would have been done in Anne or one her family's handwriting. It was unbelievable, and very moving, and I'd love to read the book again having now seen the layout and been there for myself.

We next went in search of the Cathedral that sits in the middle of the Red Light District, if only because they are such contradictory things that it didn't seem right not to see them side by side. And although it was midafternoon, there were still a few prostitutes in windows beckoning passers-by right outside the church. The Church itself, although we didn't go inside, was beautifully structured outside (aren't they all?). We then wandered for a bit more, ending up at the Town Hall, another beautiful building so unlike anything that I see regularly in my life. A bit peckish by then, we headed to Hungry Jack's for lunch. We spent most of the afternoon souvenir shopping, as I knew my brother would love something from Amsterdam, and Carl was trying to find his friend something that would suit him also. It was great fun looking through all this stuff, every shop was like a What's New shop. Crazy stuff. Eventually we headed back to the hostel - we searched in vain for a pub to have a drink at, but there were none to be found, just coffee shops and sex shops. Back at the hostel, we met another couple of American's that had moved into our room and hung out with them that evening. Together we all headed down to the Red Light District, just to experience it. The boys had been there late the night before and were full of stories of every second person offering them drugs, but thankfully, we went early enough in the night that although the red lights had started to reflect off the water, we were not offered too many drugs. The red light district though is utterly amazing. The red lights in the canal are actually quite pretty, and the windows full of prostitutes are one of those car-wreck phenomenon's - you don't want to stare but you're overcome by curiousity. They bang and tap on the windows and beckon the guys to come in, wearing next to nothing. We stopped at the end of the district where the lights stop, and out of curiousity to know the process, we watched and waited to see if anyone would go in. We also watched as a police car pulled up outside a live sex show and parked there for long enough that we were definitely curious. Eventually we did watch someone go into one of the red windows, watched as she pulled the curtain to show it was occupied, and it was all a bit of a let down. From there, we headed back to the hostel, where we joined the boys for another smoke, although not nearly as much as we had had the night before and stuck mainly to alcohol. It was all a bit weird that night though, so I think we were in bed rather early, having already tried to find pubs earlier in the night to drink at and not succeeding.

The next day we decided that we needed to see a museum and a bit of Amsterdam's history, as we'd been through Copenhagen missing anything about what the town was like, how it was founded, interesting facts etc. So we headed to Amsterdam's Historic Museum and wandered through there, reading about how Amsterdam was built etc. Couldn't tell you any of it now, but it was definitely quite interesting at the time. We then headed to the Hash, Marijuana and Hemp Museum to read up on how the city came to be known for weed, and read some crazy stories about imprisonment terms for tiny bits of marijuana in some countries where others have next to no laws. There was a family we read about that were all thrown in jail for like, ten years, just because their neighbour had brought over a bong and they got caught with it. That's insane! Inside the museum they've also got a growhouse set up, and it was interesting to have a look through at that, and all just a very bizarre experience when you think that you're looking at something that's got such a reputation as an illegal drug and shouldn't be openly displayed like that! We spent most of the rest of the day wandering the pretty little streets until we went back to the hostel to collect our bags and head off to Brussels.

The trip to Brussels was a whole other story. We had pre-booked tickets from Amsterdam to Brussels on Eurostar, thinking that it would be sensible to ensure that we had our trip booked and paid for. We selected the option to pick up from the station on the day of departure, as we did not have a Belgian address to send our tickets to, plus since that was our destination, it seemed a bit bizarre to do that. So we rocked up at Amsterdam Central station, with booking reference number in hand, and were flatly refused. We couldn't get our tickets, we could only pick up our tickets from BRUSSELS station on the day of departure. Tell me how that makes sense. In the end, we had to actually buy a second set of tickets, just so we could be on our way. The train station was hard to navigate as they kept changing the platform of where our train left from, so we were slightly worried when we finally boarded our train that we wouldn't be going in the right direction. But at least, as mad and confused as we were about the ticket situation, we were on our way in a rather uneventful train ride to Brussels.

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