This Dam Place

I should start this post with a warning that it is not very informative. It's mainly on my opinion of Amsterdam rather than what we did there, which is in my next post here.

Shereen and I flew from Liverpool to Amsterdam and arrived mid-afternoon. When we arrived by train into the city centre it was pouring with rain, which was super disappointing even though we had gotten used to terrible weather during our 2 weeks in the UK. We decided to catch a taxi, rather than walk in the rain with our huge bags to the hostel. Or taxi driver seemed to be annoyed at the idea of taking us there and said it was just near the station, to which I reapplied "yeah, but it raining?". After a short taxi ride we were at our hostel. It was a boat. We did know this when we booked it, and it got really good reviews online, but I don't think I was really prepared for what it would actually be like to stay on a canal boat for three nights. We decided to stay there for the novelty factor, but sadly that wears off after the first night. Our rooms were so small- the width of two single beds and the length of one. We had bunks because of the room size, but between Shereen's bottom bunk and my top one there was maybe 80cm and I had the same from mine to the ceiling, the ceiling that was also the floor on the level above, so every time someone stepped over me I felt like their foot was going to come thought the floorboards and take me out.

The guy who ran the place did nothing to increase my enthusiasm. He kept calling us his little girls and then kept calling me Australia while he proceeded to complain about how we had terrible food in Australia and it was so expensive, so often that I was getting really offended and wished he would just leave us alone. I wouldn't have cared but he really couldn't talk. Food in Amsterdam was so expensive! And really average. I'm sure we were stuck too much in the tourist area to get anything authentic, but we had Italian one night and Japanese another and they had nothing on Australian restaurants and were equally as expensive.

/View from the Hostel

Anyway the first night was kind of fun because it was so funny how bad it was, but even when we started hating the hostel it didn't lessen our enthusiasm for the city.

I had been to Amsterdam once before when I was very young but the only fragments I can remember are waiting in line for hours at Anne Frank's house, my mum buying stamps and wanting to get inside a giant clog. I'm assuming that my parents shielded me from the more sordid aspects of the city because I don't have any recollection of walking down the red light district or exploring a "Coffee Shop". I know that's not weird, I mean they would have been pretty awful parents if the were showing me that stuff when I was 8. But what struck me about Amsterdam this time around was how blind I must have been not to notice it.

On Topdeck we were discussing the new laws coming in that will make it illegal for anyone to smoke marijuana in Amsterdam unless they actually live there. Someone said "they can't make it illegal, the only reason anyone goes to Amsterdam is for the pot and the prostitutes. No one will go there anymore". I sat there thinking to myself "well I'm going to Amsterdam next week and I have no interest in either, so what does that say?".

I think Amsterdam is such an intriguing place because it's like a wolf dressed in sheeps clothing. You are on your cute little bike, navigating quaint canals, marveling at tall spindly buildings, riding past windmills that no longer have any purpose than looking cute, tulips, wooden shoes, looking at postcards of little Dutch girls with blonde braids and pink cheeks in little milk maid costumes; but then your surrounded by a cloud of pot smoke or you take a wrong turn and there is a half naked woman in a glass room beckoning you inside, or even more disturbing as Shereen and I witnessed: a tiny old man being helped out the door by a prostitute at 2:30 in the afternoon.

At first Amsterdam gives off a bit of an edgy vibe, but after a while edgy becomes the wrong word. These things are legal here. The government decided that everybody does these things anyway so let's stop making it so secret. Let's encourage safe sex in the red light district and allow pot, whilst cracking down on hard drugs. And without the thrill of being "bad", I kind of wonder what all the fuss is about. I suppose if you're that way inclined you would go to Amsterdam and get your fill of the *ahem* attractions. But I wonder, especially in the case of pot, does anyone who hasn't smoked it at home go to Amsterdam and try it just because it's legal? If it was legal in Australia I still wouldn't do it, and if you do it in Australia anyway without it being legal why would you go all the way to Amsterdam to do it just because it's legal there? Anyway, don't spend your whole time there in a haze, only looking at buildings bathed in red light. The day I nearly got hit by a truck on my bike tour was one of my favourite days of the trip so far.

Again this has gotten long! And I haven't even really spoke about what I actually did in Amsterdam yet... Oops. Next post I promise, and I will post this and the next together so you have two to read straight away! Xx