"Living young and wild and free" - Wiz Khalifa
Amsterdam has been called 'the Venice of the North" and I was very surprised indeed at how pretty it was when I walked out of the train station.
There's lots of canals and the architecture kindof reminds me of Germany. My train got in about 7 hours before my friends so I had an afternoon to explore the city by myself. I ended up walking around for a while and then making friends with a bartender whom I had asked for directions to the hotel we would be staying at. She was Irish and had been living in Amsterdam for a year and told me all sorts of interesting things about the city. It was (and still is) a huge port, but many sailors got lost at sea. Their widows often turned to prostitution to support themselves and it was legalized in 1830.
Since it's legal, it's apparently all very legitimate and safe, with all sorts of health and safety checks and regulations about the business. The women manage themselves and often make a ton of money. She also explained that Dutch people aren't ashamed of it; many families and normal people live above the prostitute windows in the Red Light District. That's another thing: although you can find coffee shops that sell legal drugs all over the city, prostitution is mostly confined to that one area. I saw it several times because it's pretty central, both during the night and day, and it was kind of sad and weird, but then I felt bad for judging their culture and I guess the women are making a good life for themselves. I don't know how I feel about it, but it's definitely different from anything I've ever seen.
Amsterdam has been called 'the Venice of the North" and I was very surprised indeed at how pretty it was when I walked out of the train station.
The view from the national library
There's lots of canals and the architecture kindof reminds me of Germany. My train got in about 7 hours before my friends so I had an afternoon to explore the city by myself. I ended up walking around for a while and then making friends with a bartender whom I had asked for directions to the hotel we would be staying at. She was Irish and had been living in Amsterdam for a year and told me all sorts of interesting things about the city. It was (and still is) a huge port, but many sailors got lost at sea. Their widows often turned to prostitution to support themselves and it was legalized in 1830.
The "Widow's Watch" Towers where wives would watch their husbands sail away
Since it's legal, it's apparently all very legitimate and safe, with all sorts of health and safety checks and regulations about the business. The women manage themselves and often make a ton of money. She also explained that Dutch people aren't ashamed of it; many families and normal people live above the prostitute windows in the Red Light District. That's another thing: although you can find coffee shops that sell legal drugs all over the city, prostitution is mostly confined to that one area. I saw it several times because it's pretty central, both during the night and day, and it was kind of sad and weird, but then I felt bad for judging their culture and I guess the women are making a good life for themselves. I don't know how I feel about it, but it's definitely different from anything I've ever seen.
The Red Light District at night
We spent the next few days exploring the city: taking a canal tour, eating delicious food, visiting the Van Gogh museum, visiting a local brewery, and just walking a lot. We ate waffles several times (I've never had Belgian style waffles with brown sugar baked into them), Indonesian food (which was great because of the colonial relationship), and really good thick cut French fries.
The famous "I am Amsterdam" sign in front of the Reijk museum
Some replications of Dutch ships from their colonial empire days
The local brewery we ate dinner at on Sunday had a windmill on top!
We took a canal tour, but it was raining and I kindof fell asleep, so all my pictures are very blurry. My friends woke me up to see Anne Frank's house though.
Tulips, cheese, clogs, and waffles. What a fantastic country.
I really liked the Van Gogh museum; they had a great collection of all his work.
There he is! Just kidding, that's a figure on loan from Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, which we definitely did not go to. Non merci.
Finally, you can't write about Amsterdam without mentioning the bikes. I can't tell you how many times I nearly got run over when I was trying to take nice pictures of the canals. Some bikers were really nice about it, some were not; I could hear one little blonde boy tutting to himself about me until he left my sight. The people in general were super nice and everybody was very kind about speaking English. Dutch is kinda like English and German mixed, but with a lot more letters thrown in for the heck of it.
Bike crazy!
On the canal
I have always wanted to visit Amsterdam. I feel like the Dutch really have it together. You know better than I though. I've been to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, though I was very young at the time. Thanks for the pics!
ReplyDeleteDad