Amsterdam: Neil catches a disease!

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We left the non hustle and bustle of Luxembourg in favour of the hustle and bustle of Amsterdam. On the way, we stopped in the train station in Brussels which brought back some good memories from the very beginning of our trip, almost two months ago now. We also grabbed lunch and possibly our last Belgian beer of the trip.

First stop in Amsterdam: The Red Light District.

... but it's not what you think! We were just looking for a place to sleep!

... and THAT'S not what you think either. The hostel that we booked happened to be right on the main drag in the Red Light District. Actually, our hostel window faced the street, which made for some very strange people watching.

And there are prostitutes in the windows 24/7, and they tap on the glass when you walk by... well, if your a guy anyway. It was weird. And we could smell marijuana everywhere we went.

It was a bit of an overwhelming transition from our previous stops, and Amsterdam seemed a bit too intense at this stage. So we decided to ease ourselves into it with a home-made pub crawl. We wandered around Amsterdam and stopped at any neighbourhood-looking pub in search of cheap beer. We were unsuccessful. But we drank it anyway. We ended up visiting four or five bars along the way.

Eventually, we gave up and headed back to our hostel at about 1 am. In our eight bed room, we were the first ones to bed.

We rolled out of bed the next morning at 9:30 am, and we were the first ones up. We never heard anybody come or go in the night, so they must have been quiet.

We caught a free walking tour (about our third one of the trip) It was pretty cool, and really showed us the "real" Amsterdam. Nope, it's not all drugs and prostitutes.... but quite a bit of it is. At least we were able to see that outside of the Red Light District, Amsterdam is a pretty normal functioning city with cool buildings, canals, and a lot of history.

Unfortunately, we only had two nights in Amsterdam which wasn't much time to explore. We intended to spend more time, but our schedule got a bit crowded. We just wanted to check it out before we left, and I think we got a decent feel for the place.

There was a cool flea market that we hit up before we left town. Everything from bike parts, to graphing calculators, to records.

I picked up a Swiss army knife.

Neil picked up a cold.

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Photos

Bikes and canals. That's pretty much Amsterdam
Plus hookers and drugs...

The view from our hostel
Classic Amsterdam

One of the more extravagant train station exteriors we
And the longest we've ever had to wait for a ticket...

The narrowest house in Amsterdam
Your taxed based on the width of your house, so....