Wednesday, August 09, 2006
amsterDAM! Part Twee
Righto where was I...oh yeah the show, there might be a rumour going around that I made my stage debut, I'm not going to confirm or deny, though if I was going to deny it I would blame Amelia entirely!
After the show we had a bit more of a wander around the district before, having another traditional McDonalds feast and then deciding to try and go and find some dutch pubs/clubs. Unfortunately we had some real trouble finding the non-red light district and after eventually stopping and asking a couple of friendly dutch girls we realised it was probably a bit late anyway so we called it a night.
The following day we funnily enough found ourselves right back at the red light district this time with Margaret to show here some of the sights she missed the night before. Things are very different in the day time, I would go as far as to say its quite seedy. There are still ladies dancing in the windows...doing the day shift I suppose...but they sure as hell didn't look anything like the ones from the night before and seeing as Amelia noticed this as well and she doesn't drink then I don't think it was just sobriety kicking in. You also are more aware in the day time of the public urinal's..or more specifically the public urinal smell, and the drug dealer on every street corner, and I'm not talking coffee shop drugs either.
We visited a coffee shop, actually for coffee's too!, and made our plan for the rest of the day. The girls were going to go and see Anne Franks house, while us boys decided to go and see the famous Sex Museum, we were then to meet back up at the large church which was ironically right in the red light district.
The Sex Museum was quite a sight, not exactly what I was expecting, kinda thought there would be abit more history regarding all things sexual, there was a bit of history but I think all the displays were designed to make to laugh or be shocked.
After the museum we went off to the church to meet up with the girls in which time we discovered that the alley-way's in the red light district during the day were very much reminiscent of the red light district at night...so on the way back to the church we did our best to take as many alleyway "shortcuts" as possible, we also discovered that the smaller the alleyway the better the sights on the way.
After meeting with the girls we took a tour up the church tower with our very lovely guide Elda or something...(doesn't really matter) who told us all about the church's origins, from on top we were treated to a pretty grand view of Amsterdam..and also a red light district window...
Anyway that was pretty much our Amsterdam trip, absolutely fantastic time and would recommend it to anyone, you just have to be abit open minded..or drunk
After the show we had a bit more of a wander around the district before, having another traditional McDonalds feast and then deciding to try and go and find some dutch pubs/clubs. Unfortunately we had some real trouble finding the non-red light district and after eventually stopping and asking a couple of friendly dutch girls we realised it was probably a bit late anyway so we called it a night.
The following day we funnily enough found ourselves right back at the red light district this time with Margaret to show here some of the sights she missed the night before. Things are very different in the day time, I would go as far as to say its quite seedy. There are still ladies dancing in the windows...doing the day shift I suppose...but they sure as hell didn't look anything like the ones from the night before and seeing as Amelia noticed this as well and she doesn't drink then I don't think it was just sobriety kicking in. You also are more aware in the day time of the public urinal's..or more specifically the public urinal smell, and the drug dealer on every street corner, and I'm not talking coffee shop drugs either.
We visited a coffee shop, actually for coffee's too!, and made our plan for the rest of the day. The girls were going to go and see Anne Franks house, while us boys decided to go and see the famous Sex Museum, we were then to meet back up at the large church which was ironically right in the red light district.
The Sex Museum was quite a sight, not exactly what I was expecting, kinda thought there would be abit more history regarding all things sexual, there was a bit of history but I think all the displays were designed to make to laugh or be shocked.DAM SQUARE
There was one particular room, which had porn magazine pictures on all the walls divided into different themes. I won't go into detail as to all those themes but needless to say I'm sure as hell not going to look at dutch girls the same again, its funny how in one country images can be a tourist attraction, yet in another country the same images can be enough reason to send you to prison.
As for the funny things, there was a bowl of penis's (not real), male robots that flashed you when you walked past, and fairly hideous looking prostitute female robots tryng to grab you as you walk past...then there was also the unusual furniture...
And funniest of all was porn from the 1840's!, and no I'm not talking "Wow look she's showing abit of ankle!", these were photo's taken pretty much as soon as camera's were invented with images as explicit as you would see in today's porn magazines (um...so I'm told mum) except of course the facial hair of the time with the curled up moustache's etc.
After the museum we went off to the church to meet up with the girls in which time we discovered that the alley-way's in the red light district during the day were very much reminiscent of the red light district at night...so on the way back to the church we did our best to take as many alleyway "shortcuts" as possible, we also discovered that the smaller the alleyway the better the sights on the way.
After meeting with the girls we took a tour up the church tower with our very lovely guide Elda or something...(doesn't really matter) who told us all about the church's origins, from on top we were treated to a pretty grand view of Amsterdam..and also a red light district window...
Anyway that was pretty much our Amsterdam trip, absolutely fantastic time and would recommend it to anyone, you just have to be abit open minded..or drunk
