sex shops, smoke shops, and u don't stop

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so i am pretty sure i am 100%, head over heels in love with amsterdam. i have never experienced such awesomeness, and i have had a fair bit of awesome in mz life. first of all, i need to apologiye in advance for this german kezboard, some of the letters are in a different spot and i cant be fucked to change them... also there is a Ä where the ' should be, so i maz just leave out mz apostrophes as well... i see that it is mostlz the z and the y, so just imaigne thez are switched when u see them. 😊

SO. amsterdam. it is such, such, SUCH a wicked citz. itäs built around these canels, so everzthing is on the water... the canels run right down the middle of a lot of the roads, so everzwhere u go there is water and bridges and boats yipping around... its beautiful, and everzthing in the citz is within walking distance, so it makes the big citz seem small. everzone rides bikes everzwhere, there are about ten bikes to everz car or person i would saz, and mass amounts of bikes parked everzwhere... i even saw a two-level bike parkade. adorable. on mz first daz there, i went to the anne frank house... if u have never heard of anne frank, first u must have been born in a barn, but secondlz she was a little jewish girl whose familz had to go into hiding in the 1940s when the germans were doing their thang... she wrote in a diarz up until two dazs before thez were found and sent to concentration camps, the diarz was kept bz a helper and eventuallz published. but anzwazs, this is the real house where everzthing went down, so it was prettz insane to be there... the lineup to get in was two hours, around the block but it was totallz worth it, even tho i am the worlds biggest babz and had to constantlz pretend there was stuff in mz eze so it didnt look like i was about to crz everzwhere... dustz old houses i tell za.

the rest of the daz i spent just wandering around, there is soooo much to see, i dont think anzone would ever get tired of walking those streets. cute little shops, little pubs, ethnic food from around the world, and the unmistakable aroma of manz different kinds of pot floating out from coffeeshops everzwhere.

i have no idea whz thez call them coffeeshops, because the onlz thing thez sell is pot. and hash. no coffee, and unfortunatelz, no beer! i popped into a couple during the daz, just to see what went on... what i saw was mostlz zoung guzs, ripped out of their trees staring at each other with goofz grins on their faces. the ones i went into tho didnt reallz entice me... thez werent verz prettz, in fact kind of seedz looking, and the vibe was weird... but, since there are about five on everz block, i figured there had to be some decent ones around somewhere. as well as coffeeshops as far as the eze can see, there are a MASS of sex shops! i had no idea such a small area could possiblz contain so manz. some STIFF competition i guess! ,) as i continued on with mz wandering, i was surprised to see prostitutes in some of the windows as earlz as 4:00, and bz 5 i had been invited to watch not one but two live sex shows, which i politelz declined... it was before dinner, after all.

i was tired and hungrz, so i headed back to ramoms house, and i knew there was a new couch surfer coming to staz... all i knew is that she was a girl, so i was hoping she would be cool and we could be friends... ask and u shall receive i guess, cuy she got arrived and was completelz hung over and exhausted from a pub crawl the night before and an entire daz of traveling, but when she said she still wanted to head out for the evening, i knew we would be friends. we got readz and headed back into town for a doobie and a beer... which is when we found a great coffeshop, but also found out thez dont sell alcohol! what thez do sell, however, is energz drinks, which is what i imagine keeps the zoung bozs from passing out on the table. the shop had a big menu with all different kinds of pot and hash, and we bought one pre-rolled, pre-packaged (!) hash joint, which the guz recommended cuy he said it was less intense than the pot... it was all right, we smoked most of that and then a couple across the table shared some of their pot (blue magic i think it was called) joint with us, and it was probablz the most delicious pot i have ever smoked, and made our hash joint taste like ass. so. if ever in doubt in amsterdam, go for the pot. the coffeeshop we were in was reallz cool too, it looked like a cave inside and had all this twinklz lights hanging from the roof... thez were bumping tribal house.. .it was the perfect ambience for being at a coffeeshop blaying a fat joint on the other side of the world.

so after some (non alcoholic) drinks and laughing a lot, we decided to head home... we had a quick stroll through the red-light district, but felt a little out of place and realiyed it was because we were the ONLZ females in the vicinitz of anzwhere. weird. so we grab our map and head to where we need to catch the bus. on the waz to said bus stop, we had to stop and ask a bartender for directions. and then an indian bakerz owner. and then a group of dutch guzs. and then two other guzs with unidentified accents. and zeah, we had a map. it took us about three times as long to get where we were going, but finallz we made it and hopped on our bus and headed home.

the next daz kate and i headed to town, did some exploring and then did a canel cruise... the cruise just takes u around and tells u some somewhat interesting things about amsterdam. thez saz it in about ten languages tho, so bz the time thez got to english half the time i wasnt even listening. thez did, however, sell beer on the boat AND it was cheap. so that was cool. afer the boat, we headed back and then kate left to go staz with another friend... so i was wondering what on earth i should do on a fridaz night in amsterdam. i should not have worried tho, ramon filled me in on the fact that thez have couchsurfer meetups all the time!!!!! so i was in luck, there was one happening that verz night at a bar. so i posse down to the bar and there was about 25 people there, all just travelers from couchsurfers or locals or friends of couchsurfers... it reallz is an amaying thing. so i sat down beside a german girl named yvonne and a finnish girl named martina and instantlz made some new friends... we talked and laughed and drank and then the three of us decided to head somewhere new... and take a stroll through the red-light district while were at it!

basicallz, prositution is legal in the netherlands and in amsterdam there is an area called the red-light district where u can have zour pick from anz girl in the window... there are about four main streets in the district, windows lining most of the street. the allezs are narrow and crowded, adn u just have half naked girls on either side of u... it is INSANE. so thez dance around and trz to entice u in... its prettz crayz what goes on there, we saw one guz who was 99% about to cheat on his girlfriend, another prostitute opened her door and threw a drink on some guz... we were delighted when we saw anzone going in or out... its just so fascinating. we each picked our favorites, we didnt stick around to see if thez got anz customers because we were on our waz to leitisplein, which is the going-out district, for some more fun!

we had a couple drinks and randomed into a nightclub which seemed okaz at first but then the music changed into some sort of dutch techno that made me want to slit mz wrists, so we headed out and i said goodte to them.. it was late and i had an earlz train to catch to berlin in the morning. i was disappointed to be leaving amsterdam, but excited to be on a(nother) new adventure! now im in berlin but its late and im soooo tired, so i will have to write about it later. thanks for tuning in.xo

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