We bought a map, got directions, and after I led as a little bit the wrong way, we were soon heading down the right street, into the Red Light District where our hostel was located. As soon as we got off the main road, I started to see the beauty of the place (no, I'm not talking about all the dildos in the shop windows). Amsterdam is a maze of canals. For every two or three streets crossed, there is a canal to walk over as well. I was getting more and more excited as we entered the heart of town. Porn cinemas! Cannabis! Beautiful old architecture! Sparkly water! And at last, our hostel!
We had managed to book a private room for out first night, but night two would be a different story. The room was awesome (St. Christopher's), though it had cost a pretty penny. Accommodation is pricey in Amsterdam, which is why we had decided to go the hostel route, but a private room was still well over 50 euro a night for both of us, and the second night in an 8-bed mixed dorm put the total over 100. In any case, it was a cool room with lots of weird art on the walls and though there was no smoking allowed in the rooms, I imagined it would either be a really awesome or really creepy place to come back to after a festive evening. Or afternoon. Whichever.
Amazing, futuristic, gigantic library of Amsterdam.
First order of business: dinner. The hostel was in a perfect location, just off the Damstraat, a great street for food, perpendicular to the Damrak, a main road leading to the train station, and right on the edge of the Red Light District. There was no window prostitution on our street, which was kind of nice, but you only had to go around the corner to see it. But we were hungry. We headed down Damstraat and found a Mexican restaurant. I still marvel at the fact that I can eat Mexican in Europe after living in France for seven months, where they don't seem to have gotten the memo.
There's always something just a bit off about about European Mexican, as though something was lost on the trip across the Atlantic. When my mom tried to order a vegetarian burrito in Edinburgh, the waiter said, "Okay, we will invent a new one for you!" When the GD and I ordered a guacamole appetizer in Amsterdam, the dip was delicious, but where there should have been delicious, fresh tortilla chips, there were Dorito-style, red-flavored chips from a bag. Oh well, you can't win 'em all. My tacos were delicious.
It was probably a bit counterintuitive to eat Mexican before getting stoned, but we were hungry, and we needed fuel before setting off in pursuit of a café. The search did not take long. We stopped into a nearby seed shop and asked for the recommendation of the woman working there. She pointed across the canal. "The Green House is very good." Awesome. After a bit of a trial*, we got some cash and headed to our destination.
The man with the weed was super friendly and helpful. And British! He told us about all the varieties of cannabis available and their different effects. For walking around (as we were planning to do) he recommended one that had the highest levels of... well, whatever it is that makes you high (giggly, energized, talkative) rather than stoned (vegged out in front of the T.V. popping JuJu Bees). Twelve euro for a gram. Five euro bought enough to roll a joint.
Let's just say that my stoner days are more or less behind me, and while I'm at it, let me remind everyone that this is not an incriminating post as everything we were doing was legal, but I do still take pride in my rolling. If I were I smoker, I'd definitely roll my own cigarettes. I am a premo joint roller. And I put my skills to good use to roll myself a pure one, as well as a a spliff for the GD (he's a half-tobacco kind of man).
We lit up and walked out. We wandered into the heart of the District, and it was a bit grim. I don't know why, but I expected window prostitution to retain an element of class and glamour. I guess I was picturing French lingerie, seductive poses, elaborate hairstyles. The reality was a stark contrast to my suppositions. All the women looked the same. Well, not actually the same, but they were all wearing bikinis, bad make-up and tans glowing under the red, florescent light over their window, and most of them were having fake conversations on their cell phones. Most of the women were standing in front of staircases, presumably leading to other rooms and other prostitutes; some, however, were standing in a bedroom. We were stoned, and the whole thing was pretty surreal to begin with. These were real women; this was their job. We saw a lot of people milling around, but no one went in. The GD wanted to go back to the hostel. So did I.
Monday morning we woke up and checked out of our room. We hired bikes to see Amsterdam like the locals see it. It is an amazing city for biking. Not only are there bike paths everywhere, but the bikes are well-integrated into and respected by the general car traffic. It was a sunny day, the canals were shining, and it could have been the weed, but I truly felt like I was riding through a magical chalk drawing from Mary Poppins. It was all too beautiful! We rode to the Van Gogh museum, which I highly recommend. We rode to the gigantic, architectural wonder that is the Amsterdam library. Technically, the GD's week off was study leave, so he got in a couple of hours of anatomy and physiology while I wrote and then explored the building.
We went back to the hostel to check into our new room, the mixed dorm. I was the mixer. Six men, the GD and me. We didn't stay to chat. Studying out of the way, we went back to the Green House to use up the remainder of our supply before our flight out the next day.
We explored a bit more, walking past several theatres with live sex shows. Suspiciously, most of them had the same pictures on the marquee outside. There must be a standard set. We went back to the hostel, had a quiet evening and were asleep before the roomies got back. Two of them were up around 6 a.m. to check out and probably couldn't have taken longer or applied more spray-on deodorant in the process. By midday we were at the airport and then on a plane back to Dublin; back to the Fringe for me and a start on some real studying for the GD. We'll miss you Amsterdam. Until next time.
*Apparently, on a Sunday night in Amsterdam, all of the cash machines are empty. We kept coming across machine after machine that was out of order. We finally stopped into a cash exchange kiosk to ask what the deal was and where we could get money. He explained that the only safe bet was the train station, that everything else would be sucked dry. We were heading that way (quite a walk), when we saw a line of about ten people waiting for what turned out to be an ATM. We crossed our fingers, got in line, and made it to the front before the supply was depleted.
No comments:
Post a Comment