Amsterdamage

Amsterdam, aahh Amsterdam. I ventured out into the land of bikes, prostitutes, and weed with my mates Min, Sel, Meera and Eleni.

I took in excess of 500 pictures over 2 and a half days – that’s 200 pictures per day on average. Looking through them later I didn’t remember taking half of them – between us we must have taken well over 1000 pictures (as well as videos which I won’t be posting – sorry to disappoint ). Crazy stuff. This is why I couldn’t go away and just shoot film – I’m not selective enough! Many of these are simply snapshots, as opposed to super arty pictures.

Anyway, we named our trip Amsterdamage – clever eh!

I won’t be posting many pictures of us due to the minor matter of dignity, but here are some that hopefully represent this somewhat intriguing city.

At the airport in London – Eleni typically equipped with (healthy) food Selin on the right

Of course I have to include obligatory plane shots.

The most miserable-looking air steward I’ve seen. Then again, when the plane is full of rowdy stag-weekend revellers, you can’t help but feel sympathetic.

As you can see, we flew in style.

As soon as we landed, the damage begins!

I took this pic just before I fell backwards. Doh.

Strangely enough, the first thing we noticed as soon as we arrived at the airport was the whiff of weed. I have a theory that they spray the scent in the Arrivals area just to get tourists excited. It’s not as though people can arrive into the country smoking weed so this is the only feasible explanation!

I love this graffiti.

We went to Anne Frank’s house on the second day, but more on that later.

Watching them play was interesting.. for about 5 seconds. I wanted to take one of the pieces home with me.

Hm, still missing..

.. you do wonder what happened to her.

These were the BEST waffles I have ever had.

They were from an Australian chocolate place – not very Amsterdam but then again, there’s no food that’s really unique to this city (minus spacecakes that is).

Stylish, I’m sure you’ll agree.

We seemed to ask for directions quite a bit, although in this instance I can’t remember what for..

The man below told us he owns the best coffee shop in Amsterdam and told us where to find it. It was called something like ‘Fantasies’.

After walking for a while and asking a number of people for ‘Fantasies’ we decided to ditch that idea and went to a very cool Moroccan shop instead.

The guys at the counter refused to sell us anything stronger than what they thought was appropriate for us. So basically they gave us the mildest stuff, which was actually not mild for us at all! I was surprised that they ‘look out’ for people in this way – but I suppose it makes Amsterdam more appealing in a sense and means that the streets aren’t infested with completely zoned out lightweights.

Meera’s fantastic auto-focus skills At least it’s a pretty background.

Skulls are in. I should have bought these – very funky.

The one downside of the trip – the weather.

It rained constantly – and I don’t mean drizzle. We’re talking torrential downpours.

The shrooms below are apparently very strong, and once again the shopkeeper wouldn’t sell them to us. On the menu it said something like ‘will cause major hallucinations’. Perhaps not the best idea!

The Red Light District is a very amusing place, and conveniently located in the central part of the city. Below is just one of the many alleyways home to Amsterdam’s window-displaying prostitutes.

Taking pictures here is extremely difficult. Many windows display ‘No Photography’ signs and these women are known to be somewhat intolerant to any keen photographers. If you could see some of them you’d understand what I mean. You really wouldn’t want to mess with them I can assure you!

One to full-view

Another to full-view.

At first the concept seemed really bizarre – especially in broad daylight with parents and their children walking past. As we soon learned, this is really rather normal to local residents.

Awww

Inside the shop..

Cute things

Arty things

A poser outside – he asked me to take a picture of him.

A piggy S&M mask.. now I love pigs, but this is somewhat freaky.

More posers

By this time, let’s just say the cakes were starting to have an impact. I’ve never laughed so much at what appears to be absolutely nothing! We’ll leave it at that

We ate a huuuge dinner (Thai I think), and at the time it tasted like the best food in the entire world. Looking back, was it really that good? Or was it all due to the cakes.. honestly, that stuff makes you HUNGRY. Our stomachs were like bottomless pits.

Back in the hostel.. more cravings!

The others were pretty much zonked out so me and Sel decided to venture out in search of food.

€3 for tap water?!

Now this is what I’m talking about

It was called ‘Dutch pancake’ and consisted of whipped cream, hot liquor cherries, and ice cream. Mmmm.

Then we went to Bulldog which is one of Amsterdam’s chain coffee shops – popular with tourists. We didn’t really want to go somewhere very touristy but it was late and it looked like a cool, buzzing place.

For some reason I got a telling off for taking the picture below. I don’t understand why it’s such a problem to take pictures of ‘things’ inside shops. If the pictures involve people I can understand.

In the square in Leidseplein, this guy was kicking a football around. When we left a couple of hours later he was still there

So, we come to the next day..

The tourist look suits us I think

We decided to go to Anne Frank’s house first while we felt ‘normal’. Someone gave us this leaflet below.

A choice of ‘two fish’ for vegetarians? Riiight.

Photography wasn’t allowed in Anne Frank’s house but I sneaked a couple in, although they’re not great. Below is a set of stairs going into the basement where we weren’t allowed.

This is the original toilet – quite fancy I thought!

Looking around the house and attic, it was very poignant and touching – one woman was even crying. They’ve preserved the place really well, and even have all the posters that Anne put up on her wall to keep her spirits high during her time there. It was definitely worth a visit.

Ever had these?

I think this expression tells you how they tasted

We decided to make the canal boats our main mode of transport for the day, rather than tram – a wise decision, although at times it was hard to know whether our heads were swaying, or if it was just the boat.

Uh oh.. not the giggles again!

I’ve never seen so many bikes in one place before. Amsterdam really is bike central.

Next stop – Sex Museum.

The warning above really is justified. I won’t be posting all the pictures I took – I doubt you really want to see hardcore bestiality.

Something less hardcore

The man below kept staring at us while we were there and even aimed his camera at me at one point – so I got revenge with this one. Hah!

Practically every touristy shop had sex-related merchandise.

Mmmm back to food.

We walked into what we thought was a shop and found the above. Nasty.

The man below was walking around the street really slowly, looking from right to left.

Suddenly he stopped and then started walking normally. Odd man in an odd city.

I thought this was pretty funny – obviously quite popular as well.

I guess the rain kept tourists away from the canal rides, so we had the whole thing to ourselves

More food – this time in an Indonesian restaurant. It was quite strange though – on the first night we felt completely alive and uncontrollably giggly, but this night we were totally mellowed out and felt like flopping onto a sofa and sleeping. I couldn’t stop singing Bob Marley either – what a legend.

Still, the night was young, so we hit the streets again despite our spaced out state.

We were once again near the red light district. This time we were on one of the main streets so I was able to take some shots from across the road.

Inside one of the rooms.. the teddy bears amused me

So, Amsterdam has a sex museum, a torture museum, and below, an erotic museum. We didn’t go into this one

The cutest billboard

We got talking to this man on a tram – very helpful guy, although he told me he didn’t believe I could take a picture of him

More food cravings.. this was taken around 2am in Burger King (yes, Burger King, of all places), after eating a huge dinner and more massive pancakes. Those of you who know me know that I have a pretty small capacity when it comes to stuffing myself, so for me this is a LOT of food. I think I could have eaten all night. The entire trip was centred around food more or less. Damn cakes.

Ever seen two men getting frisky in the street?

Funnily enough this was the first time I’d seen such a public display of affection from two men. When I saw them I shouted ‘Look!’ more loudly than I had anticipated, and we all stopped and stared. They were too busy to notice. Yes, the pic isn’t that great.

After the sex museum and red light district, to return to a sense of normality we went to the flower market. This is the world’s only floating flower market, although it wasn’t actually on the water as far as I could see!

And the rain continued..

Hm, what does this cactus remind you of..

We came across this very cute shop..

..completely dedicated to Christmas.

It was like a fairy-tale setting inside, but picture-taking was prohibited and we were soon given a telling off by the owner, who, incidentally, looked like a member of the Bee Gees. Too bad I couldn’t get a picture of him!

Tourists being.. tourists.

At one point five people were taking pictures of these flowers – perhaps they were rare, who knows.

I’ve never seen a fast food place like this before.

Now that’s self-service for you.

On the way back home!

This is all I’ve decided to post I have so many hilarious stories from this trip – Amsterdam is well-worth a visit, but be warned.. there is a very slight abundance of sex shops. Very slight.

Despite this, it manages not to come across as seedy, which is quite odd really considering this city is full of hookers, drugs and.. bikes. It does make you wonder whether an open and liberal society would be the way to go, but somehow I can’t imagine how making cannabis and other ‘soft’ drugs openly available would contribute to UK society in a positive way.

It seems to work in Amsterdam though!

With all the canals it’s also a picturesque and quite beautiful city. It has many museums (including the Van Gogh Museum which we also went to) – that’s what makes Amsterdam such an odd place – the contrast between the ‘dodgy’ side, and the historical and ‘cultural’ side.

I’d definitely go back