Amsterdam: Return of the Dark Side

Hoi!

Stepping off the plane into a new country is always pretty exciting. Landing back in the land of crepes, canals, cheese and cannabis, we find ourselves again in the city of Amsterdam to pollute the eyes of Callum. On the last visit, our campsite was over an hour away from the city centre, which was a real a pain in the arse, especially in a place like Amsterdam. This time, the hostel we booked was smack bang in the middle of the Red Light District.

Our plane arrived in Amsterdam at about 2am and so rather than spend a night’s accommodation money on only a couple hours, we just decided to wait it out at the airport until morning. This was probably the longest and draining stay at an airport I’ve had to date. Everything was closed except a couple café’s and bars. After trying to spend as long as possible at a café without getting kicked out, we still found ourselves with another 2 or so hours to waste before we would make our way into the city. I had about 2 weeks worth of beard, filthy, tomato coloured dreadlocks, jeans stained with sangria, tapas and sand, shoes stained and smelling of tomato and it was cold enough for me to wear my brown homeless jumper. In combination with all this, I was laying on the floor of the airport using a dirty towel as a pillow. At this point I was too cold and tired to care what I looked like but people looked at me as though I was some kind of beast.

When the time finally came that we were to make the journey into the city, I was ready to fall over and sleep. Everyone says that Amsterdam doesn’t sleep…Those people have never been to Amsterdam at 7am in the morning. Nothing was open and nothing was around, so finding out where to go was a toughie to say the least, but we made it. We didn’t really realise that the hostel was in the red light district until we arrived. Next door to our hostel was a couple windows for the girls to sell themselves in, and on the other side was the Cannabis museum. Across the street was a coffee shop (Remember that a café sells hot beverages and delicious cakes and a coffee shop sells the marijuana and space cakes - Still delicious) and more windows for the working girls.
We dropped off our bags and went for a long walk as check-in wasn’t until 2pm.




After smashing up a HUGE breakfast we explored the place and to show Callum what a coffee shop looks like, we found an open one and had a tea. It turns out that they sell hot beverages too! Everything smells like drugs though. I found the coffee shop cooler than most café’s, due to the nature of what they were selling, the staff are really cool and chilled back, and the music is easy and relaxed. They found it bizarre that we went there and didn’t buy any of their ‘specialties’ but were still cool about it all.

Finally, after what seemed another eternity, we checked in to our hostel, had a shower and all went to a pub for dinner. Being right in the middle of the Red Light District, we didn’t have to walk very far to see what we came for. Lucy stayed back and Callum and myself had the ‘man’ walk. It’s someone daunting walking around the area. Some of the girls behind the glass smile and encourage you to have a closer look, others seem like they want to hurt you and whack the window really hard and order you to have a closer look. Some girls would weigh 200kgs and don’t look like they could get off the chairs they sit on. The streets are filled with the red glow from the windows, the potent smell of weed from the coffee shops and the general feeling of skank and grotty sex. Among the hundreds of buck’s and hen’s parties, business men and backpackers are really the only other people you see walking around. Some of the business look like they’re making a really important decision for their business, an idea far from the truth. I assume they’re probably on a ‘business trip’ too. Callum’s reaction was exactly what I hoped for. Sometimes his jaw would drop, his eyes were extremely wide open and he was pointing at everything. I think the whole experience was a pretty big learning curve for him.

Hitting up the beds pretty early due to lack of sleep was next in the books.

We spent nearly a week in Amsterdam which was way more than what we needed. Apart from the Red Light District and the couple museums and history tours, I find that it doesn’t offer much else. To see the real Holland, you would have to go much further into the country than Amsterdam. I plan on seeing these bits on a return trip.

One day though, we got on a train and at almost the last stop, we got off in a little town on the outskirts of Amsterdam. I feel pretty bummed that I don’t even remember the name of it, but here we found a bicycle hire shop. Everything was medieval looking and in a typically Dutch nature, everything was mega-chilled out. In all of my time in Amsterdam, I never once found a Dutch person who was upset, angry or in a rush. I’m sure it does happen, but it’s pretty rare. It seems that everyone is just happy living life exactly the way it is. Riding through the city was so relaxing, especially on the Dutch bikes we were on. Unlike BMX bikes and mountain bikes, these one’s seem to be made for the road and to not be raced, so they’re really easy and comfortable to ride.

One day when I was feeling a little more bold I decided that I would buy some truffles. I can’t remember if I explained them in the last Amsterdam blog, so I will in this one. Truffles are basically magic mushrooms. To sell magic mushrooms is illegal in The Netherlands, but the stuff that makes mushrooms magic can be drawn from the mushrooms and made into these truffles. So you eat them and become really silly. I was scared of them on the last visit, but talked to heaps of people about them, and have heard that they’re quite safe, and you would have to eat a couple packets before elephants start coming out of walls.

When buying truffles, you choose which kind of trip you’re going to have. Each truffles has a different reaction. There is a packet that makes you super giggly, one that makes you hear things, one that makes you see things, one that gives you incredible boosts of energy, anything you could imagine. Then there are truffles that have all of these effects, just on different levels. I bought a packet of them, with high effects in visual hallucinations and ate half of the packet. The other two were going to the Van Gough museum and so I decided to join. My truffles took a very long time to set in as they have to digest. They also tasted like an ass, so I bought some peanuts and ate the truffles with them. About halfway through the museum I started feeling funny and was getting pretty excited, not about what the next reaction would be, but for no apparent reason. I was just excited. I went for a walk with Lucy and Callum to the toilet and waited outside. The floor was made of wood and as I was staring at it, the patterns started moving. When there was a shiny surface, it was gorgeous, and it took a lot of effort to not let my jaw drop from being mesmerised.


Van Gough on a good day was a very colourful artist. He loved his colours and a lot of his paintings are pretty far out, even for the mind without truffles. When we went back to the room with the paintings, I almost lost my mind. It looked as though the walls were breathing, going in and out. The borders on the paintings we sort of dancing. Where-ever I saw a pattern, the pattern would move, kind of like water. Callum would have to remind me to move from painting to painting otherwise I would have stood there all day. I think a couple people realised I wasn’t in the right frame of mind so they left me alone, but others scared me when they stood too close.

The things I went through that day were so bizarre and so unreal. Later in the day, some of my effects turned to my sense of touch. It was as if I could feel EVERYTHING. When I felt the grass, it was as if I could feel the little fibres that are in the outside. I found a screw on the ground, and it consumed me. I was just rolling it around in my hands and I threw it away, but before long, I started to miss it, so I would have to run back to it and pick it up again. I know how Gollum and Frodo feel in Lord of the Rings now with the ring. I almost felt the urge to apologise to the screw for throwing it away. For an hour I was staring at a couple people playing lawn bowls, and I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

To describe my experience properly, I would need to use gestures and a lot of time.

For my time in Amsterdam this time around, I didn’t really touch weed. It’s hard not to as it’s all around you and everyone else is smoking. Although I didn’t physically smoke a joint, the second hand smoke alone that was present made me a little loopy.

One museum that I found quite interesting was Anne Frank’s house. Although I knew next to nothing about her, Lucy forced me to go, and I’m pretty glad she did. Basically, Anne Frank, her family and a couple other Jewish people lived in a house for a couple years throughout WW2. Jews were being sent to concentration camps, but they hid out in this house. Throughout the entire ordeal, Anne Frank kept a diary, which was them published years down the line. Although I still haven’t read the diary, I think it would be worthwhile. For those years, her and her family COULD NOT leave the house at all. With friends delivering food packages weekly, they could barely look out the window for fear of being seen.

This is a mint tea, they're AWESOME.


A public pissoir.

After Amsterdam, I parted ways from Callum and Lucy and went off to see a friend I met on my Australian road trip, Sonja. I travelled with Sonja for about a month and she even came to Townsville and spent a week with me there. I was able to show her my home and where I live and most importantly I was able to introduce her to my friends. This was her opportunity to do the same, and I was pretty bloody excited.

So I jumped on a bus and headed for Hamburg, the second biggest city in Germany. Woo-hoo!!

More details to follow…