Day 42 – Amsterdam

We had tried to sleep last night until 7am where we would get a connecting train. However, at 4.40am, some people had reserved our seats and we needed to move. They were so rude and awkward about it and their bags blocked the aisle so nobody could move either way. Their common sense was clouded by their desire for these seats. Finally we got past them and found new seats but left our bags above our previous ones. The rude newcomers now had nowhere to put theirs but as they say…karma is a bitch.

My girlfriend broke the seat table tab because she was that tired. Instead of sliding it, she pulled the table as hard as she could and sent plastic flying everywhere. We eventually got to Frankfurt Airport without anyone mentioning the table, and gave our rude friends a smug look as we got our bags from above them. It is the largest airport-serving train station in Germany and we could see why, it was packed with both older tourists ready to tour Southern Germany and the ‘boys on tour’ groups getting pumped for Amsterdam.

I’ve been to Amsterdam before but only by plane where I got a connecting train. I kept thinking we were going to that station and was disappointed when we didn’t. They sold the best rice in all the land and I also knew my way around it, not this one. We queued for tickets in the domestic ticket office for a long time, were told we were in the wrong place and had to go to the International ticket office, where we were also told that our train was full. We didn’t even care anymore and went for lunch.

The local shop sold a fantastic ‘make-your-own Caesar salad’ and we had food sitting by the river in the freezing cold. Amsterdam was the coldest and wettest place we visited and until today, except for those storm showers at nights, it was also the first time it rained.

After getting our bus to the hostel, we waited in the lounge until 2pm to check in. In that time, I went to the toilet and another boy was in at the same time as me. He talked away to me – where I was from and what I was doing tonight… I got out of there as soon as I could and found our room to get showered and ready to go out.

A classic thing to do in Holland is to rent bikes and we were no different. The bikes were also a nice orange colour so we would never lose them amongst the hundreds of bikes in the centre of the city. Due to my girlfriend’s poor choice of restaurant yesterday, it was my turn to pick where we ate and I picked a nice restaurant that overlooked a canal.

This also proved to be a massive disaster as my girlfriend hates crisps. They had been served on the plate with our burgers and chips and after a few substitutions between our plates and some picking around the crisps, she ate most of it. We cycled more and actually saw a girl posing underneath a massive billboard. When we inspected further, we noticed that it was actually the model herself, posing with her own poster.

Throughout the day we also passed a smaller ‘iamsterdam’ sign that was void of tourists. We took our pictures of it here knowing that the main one would be covered with people climbing to get selfies. We also passed a cute pub on the corner where the barwoman loved me. She went on just like my mum and made sure we had everything we needed – maybe we were just missing home and making these similarities.

We passed the Ice Bar, Rembrandt square and dozens of canals before retiring to an Irish pub for a small snack and some fiddle music. They actually had Irish people playing the music and we enjoyed their wifi more than anything. I also had a conversation in the toilet again about urine, how you can drink it and how it will all eventually be fed into our taps at some stage. What is it with people talking to me in toilets today?

The red light district of Amsterdam is famous worldwide and we had so much time to explore it. We managed to work out the boundaries of the different sections such as the Asian community and the bondage community. They were all on their phone most of the time but we did see many people go in and come out. My girlfriend also let me walk by myself to watch them knock on the glass and try to persuade me to come in and see them.

We followed a few tourists down a side street that actually led into one of the buildings themselves. Now that was scary. They stood at the door not even 30cm away from you, towering high with their massive high heels, fake nails and the smell of fake tan to knock you out. We got out of that as soon as we could and followed more tourists to a place that said €2 for 2 minutes. We thought we should do it, all other couples seemed to be as well. It was a peep show and we entered a tiny room with a window, revealing an almost naked girl dancing in the middle. You could see the other windows and everyone of them had a man just staring at her. We felt a bit awkward and were laughing the whole time. She obviously preferred that as she kept grinding up against our window and smiling at us!

We thought it best to go home after that but my girlfriend needed to go to the toilet before we biked home. The only suitable place was actually a weed shop. She went to the toilet and I pretended that I was looking at the weed seeds so that that she wasn’t using the toilets for free. I know nothing about weed but managed enough ‘bullshit’ to pass the time and we both got out of there straight after.

Cycling home, I took the complete wrong way but ended up passing the Heineken Factory and a nice fountain where we took pictures. Back in our room, our other 4 roommates were very weird. They were all sitting up doing stuff but all in silence and being well, generally weird. We just went straight to bed as we were wrecked and as of tomorrow, would be again stranded with no plans.