Amsterdam is an amazingly beautiful place, only tarnished by weekend visitors; mainly males from the country I call my own looking for a quick peek at the girls of the red light district and to make as much noise as possible.
We arrived on Thursday morning and as soon as we stepped outside past the ball ache that is airport security the sun hit us like a battering ram of joy.
Immediately, we were lost and it felt fantastic, I have a small obsession with being lost so it was definitely welcome! We found help and made it to our hotel but check in wasn't until 2 pm so we went for an English breakfast. Having our backpacks strapped to us, we were looking much like typical tourists, especially with the giant map we were constantly gazing at.
We soon found ourselves at a local cafe, enjoying a nice cold pint of cider and a smoke. We sat there for hours and it was brilliant, no stress just peace. As the day went on, we continued to drink and then eat and then drink some more until the night when we met some Norwegian housewives. There was one who was unmarried, Silja, a delightful older woman who was smart, well read (of course I told her about Maybe, misery) and yearning to go to a sex show. As the drinks flowed, we ended up walking around the red light district with Silja and her friends gazing at the working girls begging for our attention and they were worthy. Silja almost stopping at every window to tell them how beautiful they were and she was right to. The working girls in Amsterdam are not the drug addled old wombats of England, they are young, beautiful students just trying to make a living. We eventually went to a peep show and... it was strange. As we three enjoyed a cold chocolate and a smoke, we found it was like 2 in the morning so we took the very drunk Silja home and headed back to our hotel to pass out after an extremely long day.
I slept like a baby, the next day, I can't quite re-call what we did... I know we drank, ate lots and smoked and then walked everywhere with the pains in my knee coming back again. It was a lot busier on the Friday though and nowhere near as peaceful. We did make it to the museum of prostitution though.
Saturday was our last full day so we had to get shit seen, we hit the Van Gough museum were I got a very cool t-shirt. Then we got lost walking across the city to a canal cruise, which was relaxing especially for our feet. We made it back to the hotel, had a rest and then headed out for one last night of drinking. We met a Norwegian woman and a French woman who told us about the bad reputation the British have, I was hardly surprised considering how much noise the primitive British male makes. Then there was a power outage which we found out was to commemorate someone.
Anyway, this blog is becoming lengthy so Ill stick to bullet points:
- Beer and food is expensive
- Weed isn't
- The working girls are mostly stunning but 50 euros for 6 minutes is crazy
- My cousin was texting too much
- I nagged at him about it too much
- Don't go if your still nursing a knee injury
- If you want to experience everything, go for longer than 4 days
- Be careful walking as it's chaos
- Don't go at the weekend, it's crazy busy with tourists
- Take a lot more money than you think you'll need
I think that's about it... I've probably missed loads out. It really is a stunning place and I could easily see myself living there. I didn't want to come home but here I am regardless, on the plus side... it's now time to get Maybe, misery ready for it's line edit and eventual release. After that, maybe I'll look at taking a trip back to glorious Amsterdam.
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