A Seedy Time in Amsterdam

So I went to amsterdam this weekend with 7 other people. Though 1 person left early. And two were supposed to go but didn't. They know who they are -cough cough- Cai -cough cough-. Yeah, those two people owe me money. But before I get into amsterdam, one note. I am no longer going to use names since some people worry about employers looking, blah blah blah. So other than the previous slip up, no more names!

Okay, back to amsterdam. So I went with 5 CME-ers, one boyfriend, and one friend of boyfriend. Let's call him Bob. No one knew Bob and Bob didn't know us. Which was fine, since he turned out to be pretty chill when we met him. But he was strangely passive aggressive and left early, not even spending 24 hours in amsterdam. But we'll get to that as the story goes on.

So first, checked into the airport no problem. Bob mistakenly booked an eariler flight without even realizing it, so he had to pay an extra 50 pounds to get a new flight. We took a Ryanair flight to Eindhoven, which is a small airport 2 hours away from Amsterdam Central. Once we finally got there, we stayed at this place called Stayokay - Stadsdoelen. It wasn't too bad... except for this poor old guy who was living in our dorm room. He had all of his stuff packed into one hiking bag, and would just sit on his bed - coughing and spitting out grossness into a cup. He had virtually no teeth and couldn't talk. The first night there, we were terrified that we would wake up with his toothless grin staring back into our faces. But that didn't happen. And he was fine. I don't think he was homeless because the next day, he had some decent clothes on. So maybe he was just an old guy with no where to go and decided to travel. Like one last hurrah, kind of thing.

The first night we didn't do anything too special. Went out to a few pubs. Oh yeah, but the standard size for beer was around a half pint, apparently. And pints were "larges" there. And people looked at us funny when we were lounging around drinking pints. But the fresh Heineken was delicious. And every single pub had it on tap. So that was a good time. We also got a bucket of Coronas (6) for the price of 5. And we also walked through the Redlight District. I don't know what it is, but it seems like all the moderately attractive girls during the day are all replaced by the... more plus size ones at night. And it was not a pretty sight. I felt violated walking through those sketchy (or seedy, in English terms) alley ways. Though I did see plenty of people negotiating for a 15 minute quickie, so at least I know they get business. The worst part was I saw this couple walking along the RLD with TWO SMALL KIDS in hand. Wtf? Is that even legal? Their either going to grow up to be raging perverts or asexual. We'll see.

We also went to the Van Gogh Museum, the Rijksmuseum and the Anne Frank House. They were all pretty sweet. Normally, I don't like going through museums, but I really liked the Van Gogh and Anne Frank house. The Van Gogh separating the floors to tell a story. The bottom floor showed works preceding Van Gogh which supposedly inspired him. And then the main floor (which in Europe is floor 1) had all of his works ordered chronologically. So you could see how those paintings influenced him at first. A lot of his early stuff was very dark and dreary. But then he started experimenting in different styles - like using brighter colors and experimenting with curly lines. And by the end of this floor, you could see the evolution of his distinct style. And the top floors showed works that were influenced by his paintings. It was all really neat. And the Anne Frank house was awesome too. You got to go through all of the rooms of the Secret Annex and their tour did a good job of showing you what it was like, through diagrams and models and videos.

So after all of the cultural stuff, we went to get food and then headed over to a coffeeshop. The first place we went to, we got chocolate space cakes and split it so everyone got a half. It definitely wasn't enough. We had two hours to kill before it hit so we went to the Sex Museum. That was interesting. It wasn't sexy, it was just either really funny or really weird. One example is that they had this electric powered mannequin that was covered in a trenchcoat. Except every now and then he would appear from the wall, open his trenchcoat, and then his fake penis would get erect. And then he would cover himself and go back into the wall. That was strange. And they also had photos from as far back as 1860, showing various couples in various positions. Apparently, guys loved getting rim jobs back in the day. So 2 hours pass, and nothing happens. So we go back to another coffee shop and this guy is pro. He checks each of the slices to find the ones that are more moist and gives that to us. And two hours later people start getting fucked up. Except, sadly I was just really tired =( So it converted into a need for sleep for me. But other people were having messed up trips.

Oh yeah, and Bob. We went to get lunch at this small cafe. Except before that, we were waiting for people to finish up at the museum. So Bob goes through the entire thing in like 30 minutes. The rest of us take around 1 to 1.5 hours. And then we wait for some other people for like 40 more minutes. So Bob has been waiting a while. And we're hungry. So after we sit down at the cafe, Bob just leaves and gets food elsewhere. Then comes back and realizes that his stool is gone so he leaves again and just waits for us outside. And eventually he decides he's "feeling really sick" and needs to go home. So he leaves Amsterdam, goes to Schipol, gets a new flight to Heathrow and probably spent another 100 pounds (or more) to go home early. It was really strange.

Oh, and I bought 2 awesome souveniers. But I can just show them to you when I get back. Which will be December 8th, BTW.