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.
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.
posted by Patrick at
4:20 PM
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