European Wonder: NETHERLANDS

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21st, 22nd and 23rd October 2005
Amsterdam, Netherlands.

WARNING! CONTENT DOES INCLUDE SOME REFERENCES TO PROSTITUTION, NUDITY, ETC.

Day 10

Leaving our lovely castle in the wee hours of the morning - indeed, before there was enough light to attempt more than a few half-hearted photos (what's the use in staying in a castle if you don't get to see it?) - we headed north across the border and into the gradually flatter plains of the Netherlands. I should mention here that while many people refer to the country as Holland, that’s actually just a region (or several provinces) in the central-western part of the land, and was never the name of the country. The true name is actually the 'Kingdom of the Netherlands', or Netherlands for short.

The first stop was in a rural area well outside of Amsterdam for a cheese- and clog-making demonstration at a small dairy farm. Fascinatingly enough, the field and pasture boundaries were marked not with fences, but with narrow canals! It was strange to see the land divided into little square islands, though surely they can't be entirely effective - after all, cows can swim, right? But the cheese was suitably smelly and the clog-making was fascinating, if perhaps a little risqué in the manoeuvring of the machine handle.

The route into Amsterdam city from the farm took us past some of the country's iconic old barrel-bellied, white-sheeted windmills. Most didn't seem to be in production anymore, but were converted country cottages. Soon we were deep into a labyrinth of canals....er, streets, our eyes agog with what seemed to be another Venice, but with cars and bicycles as well as the myriad boats. And oh, the bikes! If the sheer number of them, propped against rails and walls and looking straight out of a seventies movie, are anything to go by then city's population is mind-boggling. The canals, running perpendicular to the main road, were flanked on either side by a narrow, one-way street and tall, endless rows of buildings clustered tightly together in the way of most cities.

It was hard to reconcile the quaint image of old-fashioned bicycles, and window flower boxes with the infamous reputation of Amsterdam. To the world, Amsterdam is so much more than a city, it is a legend, a myth, a folktale that seems to encompass all the sins known to man and then some. Even the syllables of it on your tongue taste wicked, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a more equivocative, damning statement than "I went to Amsterdam last weekend." The inevitable response to the revelation is a slow, knowing grin and an assumption that you spent the entire time doing drugs, sampling hookers, partying non-stop, and participating in exotic and unusual sins beyond their imagination. Yet the city itself, upon that first drive through it, seemed more in keeping with an old-fashioned foreign movie than a party mecca.

Before we knew it we'd arrived at the hostel, and after settling the rooms were away again on the evening walking tour of Amsterdam, which for some reason included stopping at McDonald's (eck!), and not at a traditional little restaurant, for dinner. Though I suppose that's because Holland doesn't really have any traditional food, or none that it's famous for, as I'm sure the ancestors were eating something before all the dinky little chinese takeaways sprouted up.

Bypassing the amusement rides set up permanently in the main square, and with only a nodding glance at some historical monuments (of which there seem few), Randall aimed us straight towards the infamous Red Light district. It was quite an eye-opener, or amongst the usual 'red light' trappings of stripper bars, sex toy shops and adult cinemas were real, live, posing, strutting prostitutes in store-window displays like merchandise. Buildings which had in other districts looked like unremarkably average constructions of brick and mortar slowly turned into a solid mass of neon-lit x-rated exhibitions, each with a lingerie-clad female (not all seemed old enough to term 'woman') slowly gyrating or posturing behind the glass.

Warning us not to take photos for fear of the unseen pimps, whose retribution would often be a lot worse than just breaking the camera, Randall led us into a tiny, narrow alley that could barely hold the two single-file lines of pedestrian traffic that it already had. Inching along in the crush of bodies - mostly male - we had plenty of opportunities to observe the women in the 'storefronts' on either side of us. Lit by multi-coloured strip lighting and inevitably wearing negligee, the women all struck me as being surprisingly clean and beautiful, not the down-on-her-luck stereotype that one might imagine. Through the glass you could see that the tiny rooms were just large enough for a small bed, the space to stand, walk, or pose beside it, and a curtained alcove in the corner that was sometimes twitched aside to reveal basins. Every now and then the line would quicken, like a queue that had lost some of its volume, and I would stare suspiciously at the booths with their curtains drawn as we shuffled by.

The alley finally opened onto an average-sized street, and for a moment I almost breathed again, but then we were turning a corner and plunging back into another sea of elbows, body odour and long pauses as those ahead stopped to admire or haggle. By the time we were truly free of it, I was battling severe claustrophobia and more than happy to escape back to the 'safe' suburbs nearer the hostel. Somehow, though, instead of exploring further I ended up pole-dancing with Bree and Indie in the hostel's basement nightclub, which was surprisingly fun - not the pole dancing, I've done that plenty of times before in normal clubs - but the hostel club itself. Better yet, it was empty save for about five very dodgy older guys who stood at the bar leering at us and calling encouragement like it was their own private performance or something. That was a bit of a dampener. I eventually retreated in disgust when they started playing Abba songs. Sleep looks a lot more inviting when faced with the prospect of Abba and undesired propositions. Even if it is Amsterdam.

WARNING! CONTENT HAS NOT BEEN MODERATED OR REPRESSED AND DEFINITELY WILL OFFEND SOME READERS. PLEASE DO NOT READ FURTHER IF UNCOMFORTABLE WITH DRUGS, PUBLIC FORNICATION OR UNNATURAL SEX ACTS.

Day 11

Most of today was spent quite tamely in exploring the streets, canals, public buildings, shops and sidewalks of Amsterdam. At some point Bree (who accompanied me for much of the day) and I impulsively joined a boat tour through the canals, which alternated between interesting and incredibly boring. We also wandered through a flower market, posed for photos, considered buying some sidewalk paintings (but didn't), posed, browsed through souvenir shops, posed, strolled around some leafy parks, posed on park bridges, had leisurely coffees in quaint little cafes, and were almost run over posing on what we thought was a pedestrian pavement but was, in fact, a cyclist lane. One more lesson learnt: avoid the red path... and the black one, for the cars... and the canals, which are usually unfenced and just begging for unwary victims... and the semi-hidden rail tracks, which are for the trams, known to the locals as "whispering death" for their swift and silent passage. I very much agree with this nickname, both having been caught in the path of one and having travelled in the belly of the beast. I swear, the conductors accelerate at the possibility of prey, and if they were not attached to a rail, I suspect they'd swerve to hit, as well.

But having survived the day, and previously lured into signing up for the "Amsterdam sex show" on the tour brochure (if it's on the company's excursion list then it must be somewhat redeemable, right?), the evening found me marching back into the Red Light district amidst my fellow travellers. Having never been inside a strip bar, it was something of an illicit thrill to creep into the establishment (coincidentally, after my Paris experiences, named the “Moulin Rouge") and claim a seat at the back of the room, behind the cunningly positioned bar, like the shameful little voyeurs that we suddenly were. The boys miraculously found themselves sitting in the front row - oh look, what a surprise, I hadn't realised when I rushed forward and sat as close to the stage as possible that it was the front - and Bree and I giggled over our free, barely alcoholic drinks at their shenanigans.

Within a few minutes the room was full and the first stripper came out to dance about and disrobe in the time-honoured tradition of the industry. It was a little informative, kind of embarrassing to be watching when it's another woman, and mostly just plain interesting in the way of all new experiences. After a while she pulled one of our boys onto the stage and gave him a lap-dance, which was pretty funny as he didn't know whether to be embarrassed or to make the most of the moment.

The next girl, after stripping down to her birthday suit and doing some truly remarkable acrobatics on the pole, dragged - who am I kidding, "dragged"?? - another of our boys onto the stage and eventually had him (I wince even now to write this) eat the end of a banana that she had protruding from a very intimate area. Bree and I peeked through our fingers as it got progressively worse, breathing a sigh of relief when she finished the act, but not before inserting a marker pen into the same intimate area and straddling the bare chest of the first boy to write her signature across it in the most unusual way I've ever seen anybody sign anything. Ever.

It was at this point that I started getting truly nervous. While I'd never been in a strip bar before, occasionally the nightclubs back home would hire male strippers on the odd Ladies Night. They would then tantalise and strut and dance about, usually picking an audience member to use as a fairly hands-off prop, and everybody would laugh and scream with excitement, enjoying what was essentially just a harmless tease. But, to my recollection, those guys never went the 'Full Monty', and nothing was ever, ever inserted into anybody. It was therefore gradually dawning upon me that this was no average stripper bar, and the term "sex show", which I'd interpreted as poor English for "strip show", could encompass a whole world of things that I most certainly did not want to see.

The next performer was a male, which sounds good, but oh, nonononono, it was not! He was not at all like the club strippers, the male calendar strippers, the GQ models of the world. At about five foot three, a little stocky, of Asian and... unknown... heritage, with short hair to disguise a bald patch, and well into his early forties, this was a man that I'd have happily paid to stay safely clothed.

Oblivious to my silent plea, he danced about the stage flinging items of clothing and humping the pole, before selecting the group's hussy (I swear, she must have an internal beacon or something) to go up on the stage. She was soon seated and receiving her own lap dance, during which he may or may not (depending on whether there was a second hidden bikini) have had her hand directly on his privates beneath the red g-string. It soon escalated from tacky to hilarious, though, as she was blindfolded, and after some more lap-dancing and distraction techniques that would have seen me bolting in a screaming panic for the door, he was handed a dildo which obviously felt as real as it looked, and proceeded to push it into her mouth. How I didn't choke to death on the horrified laughter right then and there, I don't know. But she took it like a trooper; I can only assume the lack of taste gave the joke away.

He even managed to finish the performance with his knickers on, and I for one breathed a small prayer of thanks. Yes, technically it's unfair that he remain covered while the women had revealed all, but trust me, sometimes inequality is a good thing. A very, very, very good thing.

A third woman came out strutting her stuff and flinging herself around the pole. I was a little confused; she wasn't really breaking any new ground, so to speak. No new manoeuvres, just a new song. But then the previous male stripper came out to join her, still in the red g-string and with a big fur cushion. My world froze. Oh, please, no. But once again heedless of my horror or of common decency, they proceeded to have sex right there on the stage - and a nastier, less erotic thing, I've yet to witness. I've not the stomach for details, but what little I saw from behind frequently slitted fingers (curiosity killed the cat...or the last shreds of innocence) was just incredibly tacky. I'm shocked that any tour company would be associated with such a thing.

Thankfully, it was over after that, and we were shepherded back to the hostel where we would never have to see either of them ever again. Bree and I, having earlier decided to wait until after the excursion to get stoned, went out in search of a coffee shop. Confused by that sentence? Ah, never been to good ol' Amster-damage, I see. In this world of hippies, students and crazy Dutch people, a 'cafe' is the place for a caffeine hit, but a 'coffee shop', ah, now that is another thing entirely.

Easily recognised by the double-entendre shop name, the strange drawings or, if nothing else, then the smell pouring from the doorways, a coffee house is an establishment in which to buy and consume marijuana, hashish, ganja, pot, grass, wacky weed, mary jane, or what have you. It is the quintessential element of any Amsterdam tour, and the reason people get that knowing look when you admit to having been. What's more, it's legal, or near enough, and therefore no longer an evil that good little angels like myself must avoid. Some might expect that I'd learnt from the night's earlier foray into things forbidden.... or perhaps from the paralytic repercussions of the magic mushroom incident in England so many months ago. To that thinking I reply.....obviously not (heehee). But you only live once (some of us barely at all), and it's hardly even a real drug, anyway.

And so it was that midnight (when the city starts to stir) found us in a coffee shop painted with underwater dolphins, of all things. I smoked my very first joint and Bree, my 'designated driver', so to speak, sipped a lightly laced tea and inspected me for growing horns or a sudden proclivity towards meowing, or something. But it didn't work. I felt nothing, nada, zip, zilch. I'd made the possible mistake of telling the service guy it was my first time, as you're supposed to, and then followed his recommendation and bought a low-grade, pre-rolled joint. But all to no effect. We eventually gave up waiting and, rather than buy another, returned to the hostel in defeat. The only definite effect it had on me was a slight case of cotton-mouth and something of a munchies craving... but then, that was probably just me and nothing to do with the hash. Oh, and I kept getting up to turn on the light because I was sure I was seeing pinwheels of hallucinogenic colours, but that was probably just wishful thinking. It was with a sense of disappointment that I finally fell asleep. I had failed as an Amsterdammer.


Day 12

I ducked out early this morning in search of hash brownies in a last-ditch attempt at experiencing what the big deal is all about. Half an hour later, reigning over the back seat with Bree and Indie (guess we never got over that high-school, back-row status thing), I surreptitiously ate my ganja cupcake (didn't have brownies) and waited with some scepticism for the effects to kick in, a little convinced after last night that I was immune to marijuana.

It was very subtle at first, just a relaxing in the muscles of my neck and a slight sense of detachment. I became entranced by the headrest of the seat in front of me, and with each bump or corner of the bus my head would bounce gently against my own headrest. Feeling less and less in touch with my body, and just staring at that headrest, the bouncing escalated until my head became a ball, attached to my neck only with an elastic cord. I was soon convinced, in a third-person type of way, that my head was a ball rolling about an invisible rink with the sway of the bus, rather like those cheap little silver pinball games children win at parties that fit in your hand and drive you crazy as you try to get all of the balls into whatever area they're meant to be.

The smooth fabric of the headrest in front of me, which I'd not broken eye contact with despite the rolling, began to pinwheel into a whorl of colours.... not firm colours but whitewashed, like beautiful stained glass against a bolt of white satin. Bree, who'd moved to the seats in front to peer at me through the gap between them, kept trying to get my attention. But I was glued, unblinking, to the whirlpool, so I smiled at her and continued to bounce. And it was quite pleasant and serene, just an endless rolling around in my little arena, tugged by the elastic cord as I reached the edge of the boundaries, then rolling with the bus' direction in a slow bounce back against the headrest. Headrest, left shoulder, chest, left shoulder, roll to chest, right shoulder, chest, headrest.....I must have looked like a total nutter.

We stopped mid-morning at McDonald's (again?!?), and it was a struggle to pull myself together enough to get off the bus, but the funny part kicked in when I had to stand in line. The rolling of my head migrated to my legs and Bree had to keep holding me straight. Not that I was falling over - or I don't think so - but it was like my feet were nailed to the floor and the rest of me was swooping in full 360* turns towards the floor, in every direction, before magically being snapped by that rubber band back up to standing position. Picture the scenes in the Matrix where they're ducking the bullets and somehow keeping their balance despite bending so far backwards that they should have fallen. Well, that was me, but with my body as straight as a ruler, no bending.

By the time we reached the border into Belgium, the effects had worn off and I was back to normal.

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Photos

One of Many Completely Legal Hash Shops
"Cafe Shop" = Coffee.............................but
"Coffee Shop" = Marijuana

Beware Cyclists
In Amsterdam there's such a surfeit of bicycles that they have their own lane. But beware stepping into the wrong lane!

"Febo", the fast-food dispensary for Munchie Time
Eeeuuuw