Amsterdamned

That's what I call the good citizens of Amsterdam. Nothing else sounds right to me... Amsterdamians? That doesn't sound right to me. It's been a GREAT few days since I wrote that last post. Let me try to convince you.

After I finished writing on Monday I met up with Femke in front of a local museum and followed her back to her place for some dinner. I've got an inside shot of her house now... it's long and narrow like you'd expect of a shipping container. Next door to all this student housing is a prison and from her balcony you can see the prison yard. Charming. There are guys who spend most of the day shouting messages from the outside to the prisoners or trying to throw cell phones in. Anyways, I still like this housing area.

We went back into town that night to go to her favorite club, the Supper Club, that she's a regular at. It's a pretty posh experience and was very busy for a Monday night. I also got to meet Fems friend Lise (pronounced as Lisa). She's from South Afrika, is studying painting restoration with Fem, and is totally awesome. Apparently, South Africans, or some of them at least, speak a form of Dutch called Afrikaans. Never knew that. I had a lot of fun chatting with the two of them but after midnight Fem showed me the way back to my hostel and I hit the hay.

I wanted to sleep in late as per usual, but the people in my room were making such a racket that I decided just to get up and introduce myself. It turned out that we became friends and spent the whole day together. We had Mike from Ohio, Phil and Celia from Switzerland, and Danielle from the exotic land of Australia. I don't think that Americans have ever outnumbered the Aussies in any group that I've been in on this trip, and I don't care to read back in my blog to find an unsupporting case. Great group though, seriously.

They needed to rent some bikes so we found a shop and Celia had to borrow my passport as collatoral for the bike (long story) but in exchange she gave me her credit and ATM cards to hold. That turned out to be a bad idea because despite me getting my passport back the next day, we forgot about her cards and now I'm going to have to cut them up since she's left town. That's skipping ahead though. We rode the bikes all over town. First we went to the Vondlepark and rode around the tree lined ponds and admired the fall colors that are just starting up here.

Next stop was the flower market. I have a feeling that there's a bigger industrial scale one somewhere in town but this was the best that we could find today. The selection was astounding and I've never seen so many flower bulbs of different varieties for sale before. Danni and I posed for some cute pics of course.

Ok, here's where the day turns special. It was coffee shop time. When you're in amsterdam as a tourist you have to smoke pot. I'm pretty sure that's the law. Check it. Also, maybe I shouldn't, but I've thought about it and decided that I'm going to write about this day in its entirety since it was awesome and I didn't do anything illegal or regrettable. If any future employers and family members read this, please keep all that in mind. Why is it acceptable for me to go to the Beer Temple in the previous post but this is risque? Strange world.

The first shop we went to was the Mellow Yellow coffee shop. These shops are all over town and all reek of weed before you even come in the door. The way it works is that you have to buy something... some require it to be weed but others will accept a drink. Also, none of them serve beer as far as I know. I think it's a licensing issue. As this was our first stop and I wasn't carrying anything I bought a gram of 'LA Confidential' for 8 euros. It looked amazing... the macro on my camera just can't capture that.

Now here in Europe, everyone mixes their pot with tobacco (usually from a cigarette) to make it burn better when it's in a joint. Americans almost never do this, and part of the reason why is that we're on our way to being cigarette free (I hardly know anyone who smokes) and also because we don't favor rolled joints instead prefering hardware like bongs, pipes, and if you're progressive vaporizers. So, throughout the day my companions made a variety of joints at these cafes but I bought a 2 euro pipe earlier in the day so that I woulnd't have to share their joints. Tobacco makes me feel ill.

After an hour or two there and several games of foosball we decided that we were ready to ride our bikes around town some more. We explored a lot of the downtown before settling in at our next coffee house called the Jolly Joker. Danni and I bought one the famous 'Space Cakes' which taste like delicious chocolate cake are made with pot butter. I didn't know if it was a good idea, but then we remembered that we're in Amsterdam. Enough said. After waiting around for a couple hours and being very unimpressed by the quality of the cake we headed out once more, in a daze, and walked around the red light district.

It was still the early evening and so most of the curtains were still drawn on the windows of the alleyways. Danni ran into a huge group of Aussies (30+) that she had toured with at some point in the past and they invited her to join them for a while. They were going to take in a sex show that cost 25 euros admission but Danni and I were the only in our group that wanted to spend that much. I figure it's the cheapest and most bloggable activity I could do in the red light district, so why not? Also, it came with 2 drinks!

Despite there being about 50 tourists crammed into that small basement club, Danni and I got front row center seats. I'm the kind of guy who likes to sit by the stage at a stand up comedy show since the comedian might poke fun at me, and this time we got some special attention as well since we were both boob slapped in the face at some point. Oh man, this show was pretty graphic so if you don't want to hear it, just skip a paragraph or two. Naturally there are no pictures of the show, so I'm just going to put random stuff in its place.

The show was made up of many different acts and most of them were just stripteases but a few stood out. The first was a classing brulesque dance with lots of campy acting and winks. I think that I said to Danni that it was a parody of itself. They all ended in full nudity of course. In the next one the dancer dressed as a cowgirl and played 4 different songs from Pulp Fiction. I'm obscessed with that soundtrack and shouted along with all the quotes intersperced in the songs. That one also ended with a new trick... the girl had a man from the audience lay down on the stage with his shirt off and she produced a permanent marker. She then squatted over him and proceeded to draw a penis on his chest without using her hands. Think about it. Amazing!

Next up a girl dressed as a prison guard walked on stage, pulled back a curtain, and revealed a man in prison garb. She gave him a lapdance and then they fucked for about 10 minutes in a variety of positions, some of them rather acrobatic. In every show, Danni and I giggled and applauded WAY louder than anyone else in the room as they must have been shocked silent. When I'm impressed I just have to applaud. That's how I am. After the sex, the girl asked Danni if something was funny and we both told her that she was great. Everyone wants to be good at their job I guess.

The final scene was a banana show. I've heard of these things before from travelers who have been to Bangkok, but the ones that I've heard of were way more graphic than this one. In this act, 6 people were chosen from the Audience, including Danni, and they had to kneel on stage and watch a pretty sensual strip in front of them. Later on in the dance, she produced a banana and broke off pieces of it to put on her body so that she could make the peole on stage pick them up with their mouths. It got a lot of laughs. After that the show was over and we went back into the cold night air to digest what we just saw. Overall I thought it was more funny than sexy, but well worth seeing once.

After that Danni and I walked around the red light district as it was getting late and the girls were all in thier booths looking for customers. They were basicly small bedrooms with tall glass doors facing the streets. If a customer walked in they would close the curtains and negotiate a price. I guess that's how it works at least. There were different streets for diferent types and qualities of girls, but some of them were very beautiful. They really had something for every customer. After wandering around for a bit we biked back to the hostel to meet up with our friends once more.

With the five of us reunited we walked to another coffee shop near the hostel where they had free vaporizers. For those who don't know, a vaporizer is a device that you put the weed into and it blows hot air over it at the specific temperature that vaporizes the active ingredient, THC, without burning the leaves. You then take it in through a hose that you suck on. It's a healthier way of enjoying pot and doesnt at all taste like smoke... more like a light pine taste. It's very pleasent and very potent. By this time is was well past 2 am and though the idea of going back to the red light district was brought up, I declined as it was getting late and I absolutely could not ride my bike straight anymore. Amsterdam!

The next morning Mike and Danni left Amsterdam but Phil and Celia were still there. We met a new roommate, Ismael from Egypt who was a really cool guy by the way, and we went back out to a coffee shop made famous by visits from George Clooney and Brad Pitt. I was meeting Femke and later in the day so I chose not to have anything myself since I wanted to be clear headed. I'll tell you, that was tough for me. Still, I had fun chatting and later in the day I checked out of the hostel with half my things left in storage and went to meet Fem at her friend's place for dinner.

There I got to meet her friend Saar, as well as two other girls whos names I don't recall unfortunately. It was nice, we had some wine, talked about a million things, and I got to show off my tacky Amsterdam socks that I bought myself. Also they all had to make fun of me for being such a tourist the day before. The folks who come there and wander around stoned drive the locals crazy because they don't get out of the way of bikes very readily. Too bad I got no pictures. Later on in the night we met up with Fems boyfriend Mekki at a bar. There were a lot of people there and I didn't really get to talk to him. Oh well. That night I slept on an airbed at Fems place. She's so nice to let me crash there for a few days.

The next day I did some writing of this post and sat around her place waiting for my laundry to finish. It took forever so I only made it out to her store late in the day but at least I got a picture this time. That night we got some dinner at a student cafeteria at her university and I got to pretend to attend the school. When the cashier asked for my student card I put on some show like I was surprised that I left it at my apartment and though I doubt they believed me they still let me pay. Oh, I also went to Fems 'Zoomba' class which is a kind of salsa dancing inspired arobics. It was actually a lot of fun, but I'm glad that I didn't get any pictures of me falling over and sweating till my shirt was glued to my body. It would be better if this class was done regularly so that I could learn the moves and pull them off with grace. I think that if someone asked me to go with them to one of these, yea, I'd do it again. I like hanging out with Femke... she's got a kind of blunt humor that appeals to me, knows a lot of science and history, and is somehow cultured at the same time. I'm really going to miss being with her.

The next day was a fun one. Femke went to School and work as she does every day since I've been here. I rode aroud the city on my bike and did a little shopping. I got a guide book for Thailand and bought booze for the cocktail party that we were to attend later in the evening. Before that she took me to a diner party that one of her friends was throwing in a nearby container apartment and I met some nice people there. Afterwards we went to Mekkis apartment for his party. There were a lot of people there, mostly French, and I really had a lot of fun talking and drinking with them. Also, I got to see Lise again and I was glad for that. Finally, I didn't get hurt on the drunken bike ride home so all in all it was a great day.

Wow, two days in two paragraphs. I must be bored of writing. On Saturday I got up without a hangover thanks to Lise giving me water several times towards the end of the party. Oh yea, I totally forgot to mention that at the party I went out into the night with Saar to get some food. She showed me the croquet which is some kink of meat and potatoe mixture fried into a twinkie like shape. It's salty, gooey, and perfect.

I met up with Lise for lunch and had a good long talk with her. There's something about her that I find really interesting... she holds a good conversation and is of course quite attractive. What's not to be interested in? She told me a lot about her native South Afrika and all of its problems. Also she said a few nice things about it like how she can have a better quality of life there as compared to Amsterdam. For instance, the service is better there, food and clothing are way cheaper, and the people are more social/friendly. She's fortunate that she came to Amsterdam a couple years ago as a student since it's easier to make a network of friends in that way.

Later in the afternoon we met up with Femke, but she had to stay at work and Lise had some errands to run, so I'm at Lise's apartment writing until they can show up again to entertain me. I think that we're having another dinner party tonight and then tomorrow I'm flying to Thailand. Wish me a safe journey! By the way, sorry about the spelling in this post... I'm just using Dutch computers so the English spell check is shot for the time being.

The Good Side of Berlin

The day after Jowen showed up I was ready to see Berlin Properly. Also, the weather had cleared up a bit though it was still pretty damn cold. I guess you take what you can get. We met up at the Brandenburg Gate, a sort of victory arch for a victory over the Austrians. I know that at some point Napoleon rode through it but not much more than that. It was totally packed with tourists, but that's to be expected.

On the way to our next stop, we dropped into a somewhat remote metro station that was used to film the final fight scene in the first Resident Evil movie. I only vaguely recognized it. A guy who worked at my new hostel mentioned it after we talked about the new RE:Afterlife movie that came out.

A lot of backpackers that have been to Berlin mentioned an 'underground artist community' and tried to describe it, but words come short of achieving that. I guess I had the idea that it was a lot bigger and more organized than it is, but that's where we went next. It's composed of a decrepit 5 story building next to a vacant lot, and both are filled with squatters. We were there around 11 AM so most of the artists weren't awake yet but some were and they had their doors open to let visitors see and buy their work. I liked some of the paintings upstairs, but the sculpture garden outside was a kick.

The blacksmiths of the community do their work outside and also offered classes to beginners. That would be a lot of fun but it looked more like a welding studio than a hammering event. I'm sure they must do both somewhere. One of the artists talked to us for a long time but he was mostly spouting conspiracy theories and I can't recall too much of it. He also had a lot to say about graffiti styles and didn't care for a lot of the Berlin graffiti scene as he used to live in NY and felt it was better there. Whatever.

Jowen and I also got to visit Checkpoint Charlie. When the wall was up, this was one of the gates that travelers would have to pass through to get into the American sector. I don't know exactly why it's so famous, but at some point in '61 the NATO and Soviet tanks faced off there but nobody shot. To mark the place, a recreation of the American checkpoint was placed in the middle of the road and actors pose for photos.

Though the shops around the checkpoint sold chunks of the wall (not cheap) we weren't done seeing it so we traveled a bit south in the city to an area where a long section of wall was allowed to stand and be painted by artists. It's not graffiti'd like the original wall was but I guess it was ok. Also, I made a point of drinking a 'Berliner' beer in the subway. The locals do it all the time. I've seen a group of 14 year olds passing around a bottle of vodka while waiting for the train on a party night. Freedom!

On this night of the week, the museums were open for free after 6pm so Jowen and I headed to the archeology museum. I recall being there with my father 18 years ago and was thrilled to see the gates of Babylon once more. They also had 90% of a whole temple from Pergamon which I think was one of the cities that I visited in Turkey. I've seen the very spot that it was removed from and the signs showing what it used to look like. Most of this temple looting occurred in the 18th and 19th centuries by all the powers on Europe.

In the evening we lined up to go into the Reichstag, the center of the German government. It's an amazing building with a great glass and steel dome over the main parliament hall that's representative of government transparency. We got to walk around on a spiraling stair in the dome. It was pretty cool.

After that it was pretty damn late and so we agreed to reconvene the next day to visit the Potzdam palaces outside of town. Before we left, I met a guy at my hostel , Harry Ho (what kind of name is that?), who's from my home town in Moraga. Small world. I checked with Erika and she doesn't know him either.

The palaces at Potzdam were country retreats for the local ruling elite of German in the 18th century. Back then, the country wasn't unified I think so there are no shortage of palaces and castles all over the countryside. There were a couple nice palaces there but a lot of them weren't super impressive in general. I guess that I'm getting palace saturated. Too bad.

I wish that I knew more of the local history about the place. Also, the park that they are all located in is absolutely huge and we would have been better off with bikes but I think that we feared rain and ended up walking with our umbrellas at the ready. I think that the whole area was probably a royal hunting ground, just like the Tiergarden park in Berlin.

At the train station in Potzdam we stopped at a small hoffbrau (deli/beer restaurant) and had by far the best currywurst we'd seen yet. It's the local Berlin specialty... a brot with curry in it, cut and covered in ketchup or spicy tomato sauce and then sprinkled with curry powder. The one at this place was deep fried too and was seriously awesome. Also, the beers came with little sausages on the rim of the glass. What a great culture this is.

Later that night after getting back to Berlin we had a few beers back at my hostel and went to the Sony Center to see the new Resident Evil movie in 3D. It was pretty decent if that's your sort of thing, but the building that it was in is absolutely amazing and of course they sell beers in the theater. They're so far ahead of us. We parted ways once more since I was going to Amsterdam the next day and Jowen is spending more time in Germany. maybe some day I'll run into hi again, but that's mostly likely to happen if I went to South America after SE Asia

(unlikely) or Jowen came out to SE Asia (also unlikely) so I guess I'll just have to hope. Jowen's a good friend. Safe travels man!

A couple of days previously I had found a popular ride sharing website and emailed a couple people driving from Berlin to Amsterdam. The trail was about $140, the bus $70, and I found a guy who drove me for $50. The guys who picked me up at the prearranged spot were really cool too. The driver, Michael, is from Poland and is going to university in Amsterdam. The other, Nir, is Israeli and after doing his army service he's over here studying music and visiting friends. We had a lot to talk about on the 7 hour drive and at the end Nir and I walked around for a while as I tried to get a hostel that I foolishly failed to reserve in advance.

I found a bar with free wifi, and I called a more than a dozen hostels over Skype before I found one that's a good deal and close to downtown. When I checked in and walked to my room, I met some students in the hall and they recruited me to help them finish a couple bottles of liquor. I don't know what came over me, but I got in the spirit and drank a bit too much chasing vodka with Malibu. But hey, it wasn't mine so why not? We went out, someone rolled a joint (it's Amsterdam!) and I vaguely remember taking a cab home and puking in the hallway before going to bed. Classy. I'm taking it easy since then; seriously.

The next day I met up with my Dutch friend Femke who I met on the train into Belgrade a month or two ago. It's good to know a local. I found her at the retro fashion shop that she works at in a touristy area. It's got some cool stuff for sale (Sam would love it) and I'll try to get a pic some other day. After chatting for a good long time there we went back to her house to get a second bicycle for me. I really appreciate it, the bicycle is king here.

Femke lives in student housing that's 20 minutes away by bike. The apartments are made out of recycled shipping containers... those long steel ones. They're more comfortable than you'd expect and run very cheap for this city. Afterwards we went back to town and got some dinner at a dimly lit restaurant and had an uncomfortable but slightly comical run in with her ex who was there with his friends. He doesn't know that she's dating someone else now and probably thought that we were seeing each other. It was awkward.

What can I say about this girl? She's a student (grad I think) and is studying painting restoration. That's unique. Her English is good and she dresses very well. I don't want to say too much more now as I'm still getting to know her and I think she may read this. I have to say, I enjoy her company very much and I'm learning a lot about the local culture with her help. These are good times. I'll have to get a decent pic of her later.

Later that night we also went to a couple bars that her friends work at and I had a great time. The beer here is really really good,and the first one specialized in only Dutch beers while the second only did American beers. Thankfully not any of our national brands... the only one that I recognized was the Anchor Steam. After midnight she led me back to my hostel and we parted ways.

The next morning I slept in late and now it's 4pm and I still haven't left the building... I've just been typing and uploading picture. Femke is meeting up with me later tonight and we're going to a club that she frequents. I'll let you know how that goes.