I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve been to amsterdam now and yet my trip this weekend was very different from any of my previous ones. When I lived in Tilburg in the south of the netherlands I visited Amsterdam frequently. I visited friends and more recently had a partner living there.
This weekend I saw the city in an entirely different light.
The weekend started off as usual with me getting merry at the bmi [british midland] lunge at heathrow before food and champagne on the flight and arriving in a much more relaxed mood than I left!
Steve met me at the airport and we went back to his for some more drinks and got ready to go and hit the town.
Aprils, Havana and a few more drinks later and it was time to catch some zeds.
Saturday was an entirely different ballgame. I arrived at Schipol to meet Ben a friend from my old work and a few of his mates for a stag party. Now this is definitely new to me – normally the people I know have no urge to get married even if they could so it was strange to have 13 heterosexuals in one place.
Once Ben and I had sorted the hotel and bus fares out we all headed off to the hotel. Now call me paranoid but I was always the one at school who was last to be picked for the footy team. I mean always last – even the fat kids got picked before me. We had 3 doubles and 4 twins for 14 of us so that was 2 per room and funnily enopugh I was last to be picked – even though I had paid for all the rooms 🙂
Anyways we all headed to our rooms and got changed and met downstairs around midday for our first drink – I needed mine badly to cure the hangover and shakes from the night before.
Then we headed into town – now here is the paradox – we walked past the part of town I normally head for and ended up on Damrak. the server in McDonalds had the nerve to ask me in dutch if I wanted sauce with my McNuggets Kip merely because I had asked in my most faltering dutch. I had to look at her blankly and ask for an english translation which was kind of embarrasing!
After sustinance we headed immediately for the red light district. Now as I was saying I have been to the city a number of times before, the red light district on the other hand is entirely new to me. We ogled half naked girls and wandered into sex shops selling donkey porn, granny porn and much more in between. We saw virtualskin and prosthetic fists and forearms before finally settling in a bar. The rest of the night is a blur except I remember there being no food and an awful lot of alcohol. We also managed to take in the Banana Bar. for those of you familiar I need explain no more. For those in the audience with whom the thought of men and women having intercourse is off putting, you may wish to skip the rest of this paragraph. We watched a live sex show with some very bored dutch people attempting to look erotic whilst actually proving that keeping some clothes on is often more erotic than taking all of them off. It also dispelled the myth that all black men are hung – the one I saw certainly wasn’t – mind you he was having difficulty getting a stiff anyways and with his co-star laughing uncontrolably whilst giving him head I’m sure it wasn’t easy. In fact the only one who looked like she was enjoying herself was the girl who pulled a 6 feet length of chain out of her beaver. I was happily wondering how much drugs she could smuiggle up there but I’m sure the rest of the audience were wondering what else they could put up there. I have never been referred to as a pervert quite so often in a 1 hour period either.
Teasers was also on the list of must do Stag party venues so we ended up there and that is where I lost the plot and headed back to the hotel.
Sunday was more of the same really lots of bars, coffee shops and wandering past scantily clad whores with very little food and even less energy. The only one of us who looked even vaguely alive was Si who had dropped a pill [or paracetemol bought off some dodgy street corner dealer] and was a bit hyper. I’m sure he would have been buzzing from the orange buds he had had earlier in the day anyways.
Photo’s and quotes to follow…