Amsterdam

Amsterdam Canals But back to Amsterdam…. Amsterdam has too much going on for me to get my head around it, in just a one night stay. I didn’t go into Amsterdam with my eyes shut. You’d have to be reasonably ignorant to not have heard of the Netherlands’, and in particular Amsterdam’s, liberal policies on drugs and prostitution. In addition to that assumed knowledge, I did have the misfortune to stumble upon Antwerp’s depressing red light district a few months earlier. So I wasn’t exactly an innocent babe in the big bad woods. However as I strolled through the beautiful old buildings on the canals of Amsterdam, I couldn’t but help thinking that all those stories of Amsterdam must be exaggerated. Then as night fell, I stepped into the red light district… Hacking coughs from young American tourists freely lighting up outside a coffee shop, women in windows, men pausing on their evening stroll to window shop at the g@y cinema…. It’s the scale of the red light district and its contrast to the pretty city that I had seen just a few minutes before, that got me. The red light district doesn’t seem quite authentic. I wonder how many locals actually frequent the area. It’s like a tourist attraction… a dope disneyland. There are coffee shops throughout the city and indeed country. And I’m sure a pro isn’t hard to find either. So there’s no need for a local to visit the freak show to light up or release excess seed. On a side note, in Holland, if a coffee shop sells weed, and a cafe sells beer, where the hell do you get a coffee from? After the red light district, I continued on to the centre of Amsterdam’s nightlife, Leidseplein. It is a very lively place (but possibly quite touristy), and it would be a great venue to have a big night with your mates. However as I was a lonesome traveller, I thought that I’d save a big night in Amsterdam for another time when I can visit with others. So I decided to retire to my digs for the evening… My digs were of course a cabin in a boat on the canal. If you had the chance, wouldn’t you stay on a boat?