Amsterdam
Amsterdam has been one of the most bizarre and wildly changeable experiences of all my travels.
We arrived on the evening of the 17th at our hotel in the red light district. Everything we'd read prior to booking had mentioned how safe and secure this area is, that violent crime is not a problem. The only caution was to beware of pickpockets and drug touts.
It was good advice. Greeted by a gaggle of transvestites as we entered the lobby, we wondered what we'd gotten ourselves into, but the room was clean and quiet, if a little cramped and unglamourous.
We immediately set off into the night. At this latitude the sky is light until 11pm and even on this Sunday night the streets were teeming with revelers, regulars and the curious.
It's like King's Cross in Sydney writ large, but King's Cross never had the infamous 'Window Prostitutes'.
We'd been warned by others that the women behind the glass were more often than not sad, scary, or more frequently both - but they must've gone down different streets. The crowds of mostly drunken tourists ogled shamelessly - which I guess is the point. We watched a group of young Brits try and work up the courage to enter the parlour of a particularly stunning girl, but these guys lacked true British bottle and scampered off.
It was quite a lot of fun - a carnival atmosphere as Jus and I watched the women try and attract punters by rapping on the glass and gesturing provocatively.
The same area had many of the remaining coffee houses in Amsterdam.
There's an interesting history behind this, which we learned from a tour guide. These coffee houses started out when an old antique dealer decided to supplement her income by putting a few stools outside her shop and offer joints for sale. Soon enough, a significant number of people began to offer a similar service. In a time where hard drugs were also becoming a problem, the local authorities solved the problem by asking everyone who was selling pot to write in with their name and address to apply for a license. The advantage of this was that big shady drug dealers did not apply while the little 'ma & pa' types thought "why not?" and got licenses.
Initially 750 licenses were granted and that number has gradually diminished to 250 due to extremely strict no-tolerance, no-warning rules and frequent raids. The remaining businesses are now extremely self-policing and are safe and for the most part comfortable places to go and have a smoke or a hash cookie.
That said, we never found the time to try it.
If I'd had the time to write this prior to our second day in Amsterdam, I probably would've had a very negative view of the city. The red light district and centre of town is vibrant, exciting and dynamic. But it's dirty, filled with touts, beggars, pickpockets, tourists and bad restaurants.
Luckily, on our second day, we went on a 4 hour bike tour with Sean, from Mike's Bike Tours. Sean, like so many tour guides, is an ex-pat American. He came here for a seven day holiday. 17 years later, he's still here. Looking like the love-child of Gene Wilder and Eric Idle, Sean clearly loves Amsterdam and managed to impart so much of what makes the city great that over the course of the tour came to truly fall in love with the city.
It's a strange city, founded on Christian ideals and made great by trafficking in any illegal, immoral or otherwise questionable product or activity that other countries wouldn't touch. The first republic in the world, it voluntarily became a constitutional monarchy after years of its European neighbours, nervous about this whole democracy thing, attacking pretty much constantly for 200 years. It's the city where John and Yoko famously posed naked for reporters in the Hilton to give peace a chance - the Hilton kept the room with the lover's wall & window drawings in place. For 30 years they've charged as much for those rooms as all the others in the hotel combined. You can see the drawings they made on the windows even today - they're constantly refreshed even today. There's a strong socialist bent in the country, they do things their own way but everything works, there's very little serious crime and there's a great deal of beauty and culture.
There's also a hell of a lot of bikes. I forget the actual figure, but it's in the millions. They're all crap tho. They look like leftovers from the purge of the Nazis, driven out of the city on foot and bike. Here's why - everyone's bike gets stolen at some point. In a city with a whole lot of junkies and a large student population the forces of demand and supply can be seen at work in the large piles of rusting bike parts in every alley. Sean has had six bikes stolen in the time he's been here. It's just a way of life and so everyone rides crap bikes.
Sean also put us onto a fantastic local restaurant, De Klos. It's been in place for 36 years and serves some of the best food we've had on the trip so far. Jus ordered a lamb shoulder and I had the smoked ribs. Jus' meal came out looking like something you could beat a mugger to death with while tasting like heaven. The ribs were the best I've ever had. The bar guys were cool and funny and treated us to a fantastic last drink of *spanish for 43* - a Spanish liquor.
All the houses in Amsterdam are falling down. Built on a swamp, the original method of building foundations involved 20 metre pylons of wood on a bed of interspersed beds of sand and leather to deal with changes in moisture. Over time, the pylons rot and houses start to slump. Forward, backward, sideways - usually some combination of this all at once. Some also lean forward deliberately. Because the buildings are so narrow, there's a hook at the very top of every building, used to winch your belongings up to the window of whatever floor you want them on - the stairs are too narrow for all but the smallest items. Our guide sent his fridge through his neighbour's window the first time he attempted it. The leaning forward is to accomodate a better angle for winching. But most buildings just lean.
There's a lot more to Amsterdam - we'll come back again if we can, it's the kind of city we feel we could both love living in.
We're now on the Thalys train to Paris. Due to a total lack of internet access over the last couple of days, we haven't got a booking. So we'll sort it out when we get there.
We arrived on the evening of the 17th at our hotel in the red light district. Everything we'd read prior to booking had mentioned how safe and secure this area is, that violent crime is not a problem. The only caution was to beware of pickpockets and drug touts.
It was good advice. Greeted by a gaggle of transvestites as we entered the lobby, we wondered what we'd gotten ourselves into, but the room was clean and quiet, if a little cramped and unglamourous.
We immediately set off into the night. At this latitude the sky is light until 11pm and even on this Sunday night the streets were teeming with revelers, regulars and the curious.
It's like King's Cross in Sydney writ large, but King's Cross never had the infamous 'Window Prostitutes'.
We'd been warned by others that the women behind the glass were more often than not sad, scary, or more frequently both - but they must've gone down different streets. The crowds of mostly drunken tourists ogled shamelessly - which I guess is the point. We watched a group of young Brits try and work up the courage to enter the parlour of a particularly stunning girl, but these guys lacked true British bottle and scampered off.
It was quite a lot of fun - a carnival atmosphere as Jus and I watched the women try and attract punters by rapping on the glass and gesturing provocatively.
The same area had many of the remaining coffee houses in Amsterdam.
There's an interesting history behind this, which we learned from a tour guide. These coffee houses started out when an old antique dealer decided to supplement her income by putting a few stools outside her shop and offer joints for sale. Soon enough, a significant number of people began to offer a similar service. In a time where hard drugs were also becoming a problem, the local authorities solved the problem by asking everyone who was selling pot to write in with their name and address to apply for a license. The advantage of this was that big shady drug dealers did not apply while the little 'ma & pa' types thought "why not?" and got licenses.
Initially 750 licenses were granted and that number has gradually diminished to 250 due to extremely strict no-tolerance, no-warning rules and frequent raids. The remaining businesses are now extremely self-policing and are safe and for the most part comfortable places to go and have a smoke or a hash cookie.
That said, we never found the time to try it.
If I'd had the time to write this prior to our second day in Amsterdam, I probably would've had a very negative view of the city. The red light district and centre of town is vibrant, exciting and dynamic. But it's dirty, filled with touts, beggars, pickpockets, tourists and bad restaurants.
Luckily, on our second day, we went on a 4 hour bike tour with Sean, from Mike's Bike Tours. Sean, like so many tour guides, is an ex-pat American. He came here for a seven day holiday. 17 years later, he's still here. Looking like the love-child of Gene Wilder and Eric Idle, Sean clearly loves Amsterdam and managed to impart so much of what makes the city great that over the course of the tour came to truly fall in love with the city.
It's a strange city, founded on Christian ideals and made great by trafficking in any illegal, immoral or otherwise questionable product or activity that other countries wouldn't touch. The first republic in the world, it voluntarily became a constitutional monarchy after years of its European neighbours, nervous about this whole democracy thing, attacking pretty much constantly for 200 years. It's the city where John and Yoko famously posed naked for reporters in the Hilton to give peace a chance - the Hilton kept the room with the lover's wall & window drawings in place. For 30 years they've charged as much for those rooms as all the others in the hotel combined. You can see the drawings they made on the windows even today - they're constantly refreshed even today. There's a strong socialist bent in the country, they do things their own way but everything works, there's very little serious crime and there's a great deal of beauty and culture.
There's also a hell of a lot of bikes. I forget the actual figure, but it's in the millions. They're all crap tho. They look like leftovers from the purge of the Nazis, driven out of the city on foot and bike. Here's why - everyone's bike gets stolen at some point. In a city with a whole lot of junkies and a large student population the forces of demand and supply can be seen at work in the large piles of rusting bike parts in every alley. Sean has had six bikes stolen in the time he's been here. It's just a way of life and so everyone rides crap bikes.
Sean also put us onto a fantastic local restaurant, De Klos. It's been in place for 36 years and serves some of the best food we've had on the trip so far. Jus ordered a lamb shoulder and I had the smoked ribs. Jus' meal came out looking like something you could beat a mugger to death with while tasting like heaven. The ribs were the best I've ever had. The bar guys were cool and funny and treated us to a fantastic last drink of *spanish for 43* - a Spanish liquor.
All the houses in Amsterdam are falling down. Built on a swamp, the original method of building foundations involved 20 metre pylons of wood on a bed of interspersed beds of sand and leather to deal with changes in moisture. Over time, the pylons rot and houses start to slump. Forward, backward, sideways - usually some combination of this all at once. Some also lean forward deliberately. Because the buildings are so narrow, there's a hook at the very top of every building, used to winch your belongings up to the window of whatever floor you want them on - the stairs are too narrow for all but the smallest items. Our guide sent his fridge through his neighbour's window the first time he attempted it. The leaning forward is to accomodate a better angle for winching. But most buildings just lean.
There's a lot more to Amsterdam - we'll come back again if we can, it's the kind of city we feel we could both love living in.
We're now on the Thalys train to Paris. Due to a total lack of internet access over the last couple of days, we haven't got a booking. So we'll sort it out when we get there.
posted by Kelsey Brookes at 12:11 am
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