first night in Amsterdam

---

Once we got to Amsterdam we looked for hostels where we could stay as our other plans fell through. It was really hard to find accomodation at such short notice, they all seemed to be booked out. We spoke to Gina and Casey who were also in Amsterdam and we organised to meet them at the Grasshoper so they could help us find the one hostel that was free and affordable. The hostel was on the main st, Dumrak st - which made it very convienient for us to get around. we had a 6 bed dorm all to ourselves when we first got there with a private bathroom. i went to have a shower once we got there and while i was in there 2 guys arrived in our dorm. I heard them talking once i turned the shower off so i called ruby to bring me my clothes - luckily i didn't just walk out in a towel, that would've been awkward, haha. They were really nice guys from Canada, we spoke to them for a bit and one of them was telling us what he imagines australia to be like and he was saying that he thinks there are kangaroos everywhere. Then he told us that in Canada there are polar bears everywhere and that they always go on the roads and stupid me believed them for a second! hahah.. so embarrassing.

We wanted to go out with Gina and Casey that night and Ruby and i were really interested in the red light district, we wanted to see the hookers in windows that we had heard so much about! it was crazy! all these girls in lingerie lined up in windows lit with red lights - trying to lure men in! There's just a small room with a door, chair and red curtain that is pulled across if they get business. it was actually really confronting and disturbing. these girls don't even look like they're drug fucked hookers like in sydney, they're young, skinny and pretty.. i don't get it, it's so degrading. a lot of them would open the door as guys walk past and say "wanna come in?".. but i'm pretty sure they were only the reallly desperate ones. The next day i was reading this pamplet out loud to ruby about the red light district and it said what the hookers do is called a "suck and fuck" it takes 15 minutes and costs 50 euro. we thought this was interesting - it took us a long time for it to sink in that these girls are actually prostitues, it was just so different from anything we are used to.

we've gotta head back to our hostel now so i will write more soon hopefully, i'm pretty behind! xxx

Okay so to continue this blog, after we couldn't get our heads around the whole hooker thing.. we started to try to spot them during the day because there were so many we figured they'd have to be hiding somewhere in the day light! we think we spotted one at the cafe we were at, she was wearing tights but they had holes in them which made it like see through and she had her hair in pig-tails with pink hair ties. She was also sitting with an older man so we just assumed, we thought we were so good spotting them during the day haha.

---