Amsterdam was amazing. And not so much for the reasons I know you are all rolling your eyes about. The city was beautiful and held activities for every kind of person, whether you wanted to do drugs and have sex or just plain sight see. From the get-go we could tell what the city was all about. Amsterdam is very proud of its abundance of naked women in windows and coffeeshops on every corner. However, for those of you not looking to see vagina and smoke the mary jane- fear not, you won’t be disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not steering you away from the “fun” as we had plenty of the don’t-tell-your -mom kind, but if you aren’t so into that I’m just saying you will still have a good time.
We saw everything from phallic statues to the small canals, Anne Frank’s house and house boats. We went to the coffeeshops, we ate really good food (the krokette to be specific) and we took an old boat down the canals. I’ve never been to Venice, but I bet Venice doesn’t have shit on Amsterdam. See for yourself.
We got to Amsterdam Friday night, the same day we got back from London.
They were everywhere- just like you imagined.
Funny story time: this is the red light district (at night). While we were walking through, I was carrying my big camera in my hands and I lost my lens cap a couple weeks ago- so we are walking down the red light district and this half-naked woman in the window thinks I am about to take a picture of her because my camera was facing her. Keep in mind we are in a huge crowd and my camera is down by my chest, not my face. So she gets pissed, closes her curtain as quick as possible and flips me off. News flash chick: Seeing your vagina in person is all the picture I need.
Could we compare this to a sperm bank in the U.S.? Haha
The city was gorgeous during the day.
These were just some guys dressed up like Freddy Krueger hanging out on the street. Can we say creepy?
Her house was to the left of the sign, you can see part of the door in the picture. The line to get in was all the way outside wrapped around the building and well down the street.
This was so cool- it was right in the middle of the city and you could take pictures on it. Tourists like me really dug the big sign.
This guy was crazy!! He was dressed in a decorated thong parked his act right between two restaurants- so the people eating had no choice but to stare at his ass. I do have to say, for an old guy, he was really in shape. And I apologize in advance for making you stare at his ass too.
This was a street performer- he was a bit crazy though we didn't get to see a whole lot of his show.
This was the coolest part of our trip- actually a professor told me we could find this boat club and they give canal rides for a "donation" but it doesn't technically cost anything (don't worry, we donated). But it is a non-profit organization that restores old boats for fun. Our driver's name was Ken and the boat was from the 1920's.
We took shelter in this church when it was raining. Our boat driver said it is the only church he knows of that is never open on a Sunday.
This is one of the tiny, tiny canals.
Ken told us that every year, the city pulls out more than 25,000 bicycles from the canals.
A lot of the houses in Amsterdam are literally falling over. I took the liberty of pointing it out for you to see.
This is a house-boat cat rescue housebooat. Ken said, "That's what you get when you put an old-lady in a houseboat."
This is the smallest house in Amsterdam. If you look really closely you can even see how far back it goes, it is so small!
Oh Amsterdam.
The Bloemenmarkt was so pretty- lots and lots of flowers!
The aforementioned phallic statue...
I hope I conveyed how amazing Amsterdam was through the photos, I know there are a lot of them, but it was a really fantastic city! In other news, I applied for a job at Stars and Stripes today, here in Europe- so everyone keep your fingers crossed for me!!
I’m in Muenster with Sally this week and will probably have a post soon about my time here, but look forward to seeing Scotland next week!!
A European travel memoir 