Amsterdam

December 3th - December 7th,  2013

 With a few days off work and winter closing in fast, I made a late night, booze-driven decision to buy a ticket to Amsterdam.   A destination long time on my list of places to go but never the right time for one reason or another, I was now headed there in a few weeks time. I called up my friend Ted who currently lives in the city, letting him know I would be there and wondering if he would be able to hang out at all. 

He told me that he indeed would and that if I was making last minute packing decisions to go ahead and throw that extra jacket into the bag.

I arrived late on a Wednesday night after a painless flight and a surprisingly expensive train ride into the city from the airport. I met Ted and his friend Alberto, whose house I would be staying at for the weekend, out in front of the train station. I hopped on the bike that Ted brought me and preceded to follow him through the labyrinthine streets of Amsterdam to where I would be staying.

View of Amsterdam from a bridge on my first night there.

I know everyone says that its the bikes everywhere that gets them when they first get to the city but for me it was the toilets! In an attempt to keep drunk guys from pissing into the canals, they set up these public toilets which were these cylinders you can walk in and just pee in - but the thing was, you were still peeing all over the street! 

We got back to Alberto's house, I put my stuff down, and we went out to grab some food. I immediately realized that I would be needing a map if I was ever going to venture out by myself because it was about 3 turns before I had absolutely no idea where I was. Everything seemed to look the same as I followed my two hosts around, crisscrossing bridges, watching as canals go from my left side to my right side at the blink of an eye and all the while having to be on the look out for bikers barreling towards you. We found a place to have something to eat, talked for awhile and then it was off to bed. Ted and Alberto both had to work the next day, so I was given a map, a bike, a point in the general direction of the city center, and told to have a nice day.

Days of the trip were spent biking through the beautiful streets and canals of Amsterdam, visiting museums for free thanks to a trusty museum card (thanks Alberto), and eating delicious herring from street vendors who spoke better English than I did. That night, I met up with Ted after work and we went out to dinner and then off to a coffee shop to hang out. We caught up on Turkish politics, immigration reform (his area of interest, not mine), we waxed philosophical, we waxed nostalgic, and then at some point, I inexplicably just started waxing the table with my sleeve - it just seemed to be so shiny. Hours passed (or minutes?) before we decided to take to the streets and wander the streets aimlessly, taking in the city in our heightened state of uh, something.

(An hour after exiting coffee shop with little to no spoken words between us)

Ted: "Hey, where are we going anyways?"
Nick: "I dunno man, I thought I was following you."
Ted: "Really? I thought I was following you."

Well, once we pinpointed who, was in fact, following who, we were able to decisively head in the direction of the Red Light District. The Red Light District was quite an experience. Although it was pretty much how I thought it was going to be, it was funny to see the difference in the women on the Thursday day shift opposed to the women on the Friday and Saturday night shift. The girls on the Thursday shift seemed grittier, uglier, heavier and meaner but that didn't seem to stop guys from knocking on their windows to ask about prices. I guess they are old enough to know that everyone has a type.

The beautiful, gorgeous and near naked women on the Friday and Saturday night shift beckon men from their fluorescently decorated window frame, smiling big, authentic and obviously interested in what they have to say. I think that these type of women would be trouble even if they weren't prostitutes. They look at you as if you are the most important, funny, attractive man in the world. I watched as several guys, having no interest in paying for sex, got tractor-beamed by their presence and ended up talking to them in the door frame, engaging in a conversation, having their jokes laughed at, their fashion sense complimented and finally negotiated.

The closest I dared get to the Red Light District with my camera. Women are known for running down tourists and smashing their cameras and phones on the ground. 

 
The city was more beautiful than I had anticipated it being. It being so close to Christmas, the canals and bridges were decorated in festive lighting and tinsel which made you forget about the bone-chilling cold as you walked and rode around the city.

I visited the Anne Frank museum, Amsterdam museum and (only because I didn't have to pay for it) the Van Gogh museum. I really really tried to walk around as if I cared about any of the shit I was looking at but I just couldn't. It was all lost on me, almost as much as an expensive bottle of wine. The most amusing part of it was listening to the other people acting as if they knew what in god's name they were talking about and equally as funny, listening to their friends responding to their obviously thoughtful opinion.  I realized that most of the nonsense they were uttering was from the same pamphlet I was given at the front door. Get me to the nearest bar.

The only painting in the museum I thought was cool. The Four Ages of Man

On my final full day there, Ted had most of the day off so the two of us went on a bike ride to a neighboring city south of Amsterdam. We biked through a massive park of beautiful green rolling hills and changing trees. We caught up on things in our lives, people in our lives, and people no longer in our lives. I remember thinking how crazy it is that some things can change so much and yet, change not at all.

This short and sweet trip ended well. More coffee shops, beer with WAY too much head, and plans to meet up again in the future. A special thanks to Alberto for a place to crash, an introduction to the Searching for the Sugar Man soundtrack and my buddy Ted, for making sure that I was never paying foreign prices or buying shitty brownies and holding me by my shirt collar when prostitutes were telling me to come hither.

Books Read:

The One Hundred Year Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared - Jonas Jonasson