Everything goes in Amsterdam

the stairs are always super steep
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We got Amsterdam late in the day so we were immediately immensed in its nightlife, which can be a little intimidating to most people. You can’t walk more than ten feet without smelling weed and there are numerous people staggering around the streets either wasted or baked. After complications with our hotel room we met up with the rest of our group and went out on the town. The first place we went was the bulldog, a popular spot for tourists. The club and alchohol is upstairs and the weed and reggae music is downstairs. The cafes are where you drink and the coffee shops are where you smoke. In all the coffee shops there menus of the different types and styles that you can buy. The local beer is Heiniken and almost everywhere that is what you get if you ask for a beer. It’s legal to drink and smoke on the streets as long as your not congregating or loitering and we start out through the town. Through some questioning we find out where the red light district is and we head over to see what its all about. It takes about half an hour to walk to that part of town and when we get there it’s everything they say it is. One long street with a canal in the middle and on either side there are windows with red lights and girls dancing or doing what they can in order to try and get you inside. We wander the streets and see a handful of people going to the doors and negotiating prices and every once in a while one will go in and the red blinds are closed. We go to a pub in the area and its wall to wall with dudes so we get out of there and take on more stroll through the district. By the time we walked all the way home it was after two and we had to get up before ten for the breakfast and be checked out by eleven. After that we went to the other hotel across the street and checked in there. We then took the canal tour that took us all over town. There are canals that were built hundreds of years ago for transportation and it’s the best way to see the city as the streets are too small for the double decker buses that are in most big cities. The boats can get anywhere in the city and there are a couple different routes that we take. There are houseboats all along the canals, about 2,500 in Amsterdam, and smaller boats docked to the side as well. Along the canal there is a small railing so that cars don’t roll in and there are low bridges everywhere. Everyone in the city rides a bike and there are designated places where there are thousands locked up. There are also bikes locked to most bridges and there are quite a few that are hanging off the side of the bridge. The bike lanes are very well set up and you have to watch for bikes when crossing more than cars. The boat shows us all the major buildings and churches and tells us about the history and architecture of the different sections. The houses are usually only eighteen feet wide and a lot of the times they don’t go straight back, but instead at an angle. A large percent (maybe one third) of the Netherlands is under water and the have to make strong foundations for the houses or else they will start to sink as some of the older houses with wood instead of concrete foundations have started to do. The house all lean forward to make them look bigger and it also helps while lifting furniture through the window with the pulley at the top of the house. Amsterdam was affected a lot by the Second World War and there are sections that remained intact that are much older. We went back to get a nap for a few hours and then we went out in the town again. After dinner we picked up some cans and wandered the city, ending up on a bench on a canal watching boats go by and soaking in Amsterdam. We finally met up with the rest of the group and walked the town again. We took one last stroll through the red light district because we were so astonished by it all. I managed to get a couple of blurry fotos, which is forbidden there, and we got a falafel and walked back to the hotel. We made it back a little after three and had to get up by nine to get to the airport. From here I split off from the rest of the guys I was with and I am going to Scotland for two weeks before I meet Alise in Paris. I only had two nights in Amsterdam and there is a lot I didn’t get to do, but I will be back in October with more time and hopefully I will get to see more of Holland and not just the city.

no rules in Amsterdam