That being said, I feel like shit today. After puking in a potted plant in the Amsterdam airport and sleeping on the ground for about 2 hours total, I was Dam tired. But I am getting ahead of myself. On Friday, we hopped on a night plane to Amsterdam. Upon landing, I was all prepared to tram our way to the hostel, until we met our first Dutch man. He stared at us as we huddled in the kiosk, and started to call us assholes for not accepting the candy he was holding out. After trying to take our picture and laughing maniacally in what I can only assume was the voice of the devil possessing him, he said "fuck you black devils" and walked away. To be cautious, and because we realized we were waiting for the tram going in the wrong direction, we walked a few blocks away to the correct kiosk. What do you know--- the man showed up soon after. He had been following us. Luckily, there was another group of girls in the same waiting area that he decided to bug instead. When they walked away, he followed- our cue to hop in a taxi to our hostel. Wonder if they are alright...
But I'm alive, so it doesn't matter. After dropping our shit off, we wandered around to buy some marijuana brownies so we could have a good night's sleep. Too bad so sad- the coffeeshops where weed is legally sold all close after about 10 pm :( We got entertained in a different way, though- our extremely hairy Indian hostelmate stumbled into the room at about 5 am and ate chips two feet away from my face. Love roughing it.
The next morning, we went on a free walking tour (that's how I see so much on my trips, Aunt Mary!) and saw the beautiful and kooky architecture of Amsterdam. The land taxes you pay are based on the surface area of your house, so many of the buildings are smaller on the bottom and grow up and out, thus causing them to all lean onto each other. Makes for some great pictures. More so than that, however, are the prostitutes beckoning to you from windows at noon. According to our tour guide, the current Dutch government is looking to essentially shut the Red Light District down by 2013. What does that mean for us? Pack in everything we can.
Monument in the ground symbolizing the open-mindedness of Holland...
Therefore, we headed to a nearby coffeeshop to indulge. While one of my friends had a space cake (pot brownie), me and three other girls decided to purchase a pre-rolled joint. Conveniently, coffee shops (and the smart shops, which sell more hallucinogenic drugs and amphetamines), outline each type of drug with the intensity, length of influence, and bodily effect. We chose a spliff with Northern Lights and gaily smoked it in the shop, the other customers rolling their eyes at our excitement. Whatevs. After getting a pretty good high going, we bought tickets to the Van Gogh museum. iPod and journal in hand, I must say I was disappointed by the exhibit. Out of the approximate 200 self-portraits Van Gogh completed in his lifetime due to a lack of funds to get models, the museum had about 3, none of which showcased his insanity. Also, the famous bedroom painting was on loan to another museum. Would have liked to have known that ahead of time before shelling out 14 Euro for the experience, but I am glad I got to see paintings from his flower still-life stage. So beautiful, so decorating my walls when I have money and...well, walls that are not also housing my beer posters.
After eating our weight in tapas, because Italy lacks ethnic food that I have been craving, we went on the Red Light District barcrawl. At night, the district is a completely different place. Obviously, red lights still outline the prostitute's windows, but they reflect off the canals and multiply by 1000. Sex shops light up too-advertising Real Couples! Teen Sex! Animal Show! AHHHHHHHH. Even I couldn't stomach that one, but for 25 Euro, I would lie if I was saying I didn't consider it. Anywho, the bars we went to were actually pretty tame, and with my one friend passed out from the space cake and the other forced to take her home, I was left with a Brit named Adam who actually told me that I have "the cutest accent". Damn English bloke definitely knows how to twist things into his favor. Might have brought him back to the hostel...thank goodness the Indian was gone and he dropped Euro on the floor when he left. Sometimes, bad decisions can be good decisions.
Sober enough, we woke up and went to the Anne Frank house, where we got to see the annex she lived in with 7 other people before being ratted out by a still unknown informant and dying in a concentration camp a month before its liberation. Very poignant- the pictures she pasted on the walls were still intact, as were the markings of she and her sister's height and the bookcase hiding their stairwell. The only survivor of the 8 was her father, who eventually found and read the diary that she had already begun revising in the hopes of publishing her story, The Secret Annex. It was very moving and I highly suggest you visit if ever in the Dam.
To uplift our spirits, we went to the Heineken Experience shortly afterwards to learn a little more about my favorite beverage. I tasted wort, or barley and water (blech) saw the horses, and tried out a "See How Well of a Bartender You Are" game, which I of course passed with flying colors.
Come to Mama
After getting a little buzzed, we decided to do the ultimate. Friends and family- please pass no judgment- we were too cheap to book a hostel, needed some energy, and needed to do something extraordinary while it is still legal. We headed into a smartshop and purchased some herbal...let's say...energy helpers- 8 pills of which that were supposed to give us a body high in 90 minutes from the intial ingestion. After eating some delish Chinese food, we grabbed our backpacks from the hostel, took the first of what we were instructed to be 4 doses of the good stuff, and wandered around the district. Drunkenly the night before, we decided we needed to talk to a whore, which, by the way, is a PC term there. We decided 15 euro was a good price to talk to her for five minutes. Us innocent little Americans just wanted to know a few things, such as does she get tired of sex at the end of the day, what do her parents think, and did she aspire to be a prostitute, or is this job a necessity for surviving? Despite the gawking (and, might I add, almost all male) tourists, we knocked on a few windows, only to find that it is a flat rate of 50 Euro to even enter the room with her. Even when we lowered our standards from blonde, natural, and attractive, to non-transvestite, the rate would not change.
Oh well, at least we gave it a shot. Noticing that the first pill hadn't really affected us, we popped another and made our way to a club. It was alright at first, just a DJ playing some beats and a few people dancing, but we were excited to get our dance on. After checking our backpacks and heading to the stage, we realized that these pills were really doing nothing to make us happy or, in our minds, better dancers. We went to the bathroom and opened the next pack of four pills, only to discover that these were filled with powder, whereas the first pack had pellets inside of the capsules. At this point, we were pretty sure we had been conned, especially because when we were counting the last of our Euro coins in front of the smart shop man, he said "Oh my god, just take the second pack for free". We were determined to stay awake until heading for the airport, so we broke the capsules, licked up the powder (by far the shadiest thing I have ever done, and in a bathroom no less), and went back the dance floor.
What do you know- my legs felt like jelly and I danced a little more. I waited and waited- still no euphoria. Still no feelings of intense comraderie with my fellow drug abusers. Still no onset of disabling horniness. What I did happen to feel was intense fatigue and nausea. After sitting on the stage edge and passing out, the dreadlocked bartender nudged me awake and told me I need to go home. The other girls weren't feeling the best either, so we got our bags and trudged to the airport to pass out on the floor.
What I was hoping to experience, but didn't
Although I vomited, tried a drug I never have (even though it was probably just flour, paprika, and a tiny bit of MDMA), and talked to a prostitute, I still didn't get to trip on shrooms (no time in 2 days for a 4 hour trip). However, I pushed my boundaries and for that I am proud. For now, I need to continue nursing my hangover and think back wistfully to the craziest 2 nights of my existence. That is, if my brain isn't too full of holes, or at least that's what I think ecstasy does to you. You know, if that is what I actually took.
Alive but Dead-
Cason
Yep, not long enough a visit to try all the candy in the candy shop!
ReplyDeleteGreat entry and the ending is a little bit like an afterschool special...
Aunt Therese