Sex and the City, Dutch style

After meeting my tour group, which was comprised mostly of Aussies (23 of the 32 people), we left London the next morning. By evening we'd crossed the English Channel at the White Cliffs of Dover, passed through Belgium, and arrived in Amsterdam. Along the way we found out that our day song -- the day song being a Contiki tradition where a song selected by the tour manager is played pretty much ever day -- was "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen. Our manager, nicknamed Nemo, said many people don't seem to like the song at first, but they usually love it by the end of the trip. For the record, he was right.

Amsterdam is a beautiful city featuring more canals than Venice. That night our tour manager took us on a different sort of sightseeing though. We took a stroll through Amsterdam's infamous red-light district with its plethora of "coffee shops", prostitutes in the windows, and swarms of tourists. Just a note, many of the coffee shops don't serve any coffee. Our destination was a small, garishly lit theater. Yes, it was time for a good ol' fashioned Amsterdam sex show. Ok, so there wasn't much good about it and I really doubt it's ol' fashioned. But anyway, for too much money we got a couple beers and watched people going at it on a raised, rotating stage. There was a certain novelty to it at first, then there were the laughs we got from the startlingly bad dancers, and finally a couple acts where they picked people out of the audience and embarrassed them on stage were amusing. However, we then became perhaps the first Contiki group to stand up and walk out early en masse. We just got bored with it. Oh look, it's yet another couple having sex. Yawwwwwwn. So we want to a bar instead.

The next day I started hoofing it around Amsterdam, determined to see as much as I could see. Of course knowing which attractions were closed for renovations would have been nice. A long walk to a naval museum ended at the "closed for renovations until 2009" sign. On the opposite end of downtown, my sojourn to the Heineken Experience came to a halt at the "closed until 2008" sign. Gah! Oh well, Heineken kind of sucks anyway. I just heard the museum was fun.

En route to the Heineken Experience that wasn't, I passed a couple of buildings surrounded by police cars and trucks and dozens of police in riot gear. The first building had all its windows shattered and there was some sort of grey crap all over the ground. I wondered if a bomb had gone off. So naturally I stopped and took a couple of pictures. At the next one, it looked like police hadn't gone into the building yet. Inquiring with a local, I learned that these buildings were full of squatters and the police were clearing them out. The grey crap on the ground was paint that had been hurled at the officers. Fun!

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. I wandered around, took plenty of pictures, went out for dinner and drinks, and eventually crashed back at the hotel. The next morning we left for Berlin.

London Calling

I recently spent three weeks in western Europe. It was spectacular. Before I forget too much, I'm going to start a sort of belated travel log. I'll begin at the top with my first destination, London.

London, Oct 27th – I got into Heathrow around 11pm. I was lucky enough to book the only ticket that started in Fort Wayne and ended up in London without being an overnight flight. I despise red-eye flights as I find it impossible to sleep on the plane. Once I got my luggage in Heathrow, I was hoping to take the shuttle bus to my nearby hotel. Unfortunately it had stopped running for the night and I had to take the cab. That's when I learned that London cabs are shockingly expensive. Eighteen pounds (over $36) for a 10-15 minute ride is just crazy. That's quite a racket they've got going. The important part was I got a good night's sleep for a change upon arriving in Europe.

The next day I caught the Piccadilly line into London, dropped by Contiki headquarters near Russell Square, and checked into my hotel next door. Then it was off to Tower Bridge. That proved challenging as the two main Underground lines that go to the heart of London (Parliament, Westminster, etc.) were shut down for the day. Eventually I found the route that put me as close as possible and walked. It was cloudy with a light rain and crowds were definitely down.

Tower Bridge is very cool. Forget London Bridge. It's frankly kind of ugly. If it did fall down, I wouldn't miss it. But Tower Bridge is wonderful Victorian architecture. It's beautiful and definitely worth a visit. From there I headed south of the Thames and walked into Borough Market. I was looking for a particular pub (Market Porter) that I'd heard had excellent cask ales. En route I got distracted though. I came upon a crowd of at most a couple hundred people and a small stage on which a man in an indeterminate animal costume was playing a violin and was joined by other musicians in period costumes while people in the crowd danced. A sign behind the musicians said, October Plenty (I just found the linked page. It's for this specific festival, which is put on by a group of London actors). I'd stumbled across a local harvest festival. I watched for awhile, strolled past booths selling fudge, breads, and other foodstuffs, and had a chat with a man in a purple robe who told me a little bit about the festival. Then I headed a couple blocks down the way to the pub.

It was a nice pub and I had a couple pints. Then I was drawn back to the festival. I found a booth selling some wonderful hard cider (New Forest cider, if you're ever in the Borough Market and want to look for it). A man dressed like a tree or maybe a lush, fruity bush was dancing around and no, I wasn't having a fever dream. The musicians wound up their performance and the purple robed guy I'd spoken to earlier took the stage. He explained that they would be making a procession to the site of an old cemetery a few blocks away where prostitutes and other undesirables had been buried centuries ago. The walking tree led the way, purple robed guy strummed his guitar, and off we went. Yes, we. I just had to join this one as did about fifty other people.

About ten minutes later we reached a fence festooned with ribbons, twigs, onions, and other festival symbols. Behind it was where the cemetery had been. The purple robed guy led some songs that are perhaps best described as some combination of Druidic and hippy. A very simple, short one that all were invited to join in singing went like this:

The green man has come (x3)
To bless our garden.
The green man has come (x3)
To bless our garden
With flowers and trees (x3)
For future children.
With flowers and trees (x3)
For future children.
(repeat the whole thing)

The tree guy still wandering around was the green man. Here's some background on the green man mythology. Apparently he's found in many different traditions and is likely an amalgamation of them. As a result, no single origin can be pinpointed.

Finally purple robed guy told us about how he was visited by the ghost of some lady (one of the prostitutes buried in the cemetery?) ten years ago and it changed his life. Okay, so he was a bit crazy. The festival as a whole and especially this last procession was one of those weird, memorable experiences of traveling though. I thanked purple robed guy for his efforts and went on my way. I'm glad I found this little festival.

Later I returned to Contiki headquarters for the evening meeting and met some of the tour group for the first time.