Amsterdam

Devon and myself headed over to Amsterdam from October 4th - October 7th (or as the Irish would write it, 4 October - 7 October). It was a great time. We left Thursday night and ended up rolling into Amsterdam around 10am on Friday. The trip there wasn't the best, but it was worth it. We hopped onto a RyanAir flight (which is like the Fung Wah of European air travel) that took us into Charleroi, Belgium. Charleroi is a small, run down, piece of crap town about 30-40 miles south of Brussels, which is where we needed to pick up a train into Amsterdam. Everyone spoke French, and we had no idea what was going on or how to get to Brussels. Luckily, the info desk lady was fluent in English, and told us how to grab a bus to the Charleroi train station. We got to the station at about 11pm, and just made the last train out to Brussels.

We pulled into Brussels North Station just past midnight, and had to wait until 6:30am for a train to Amsterdam. The station was dirty, smelly, and the bathrooms were all locked so we just had to hold it until they reopened up 6am. Oh, and the station closed at 2am so we got kicked out until it reopened a few hours later. And wasn't it our luck that a ridiculous cold front moved in at night. During our several hour outdoor tenure, we learned that downtown Brussels is almost as dirty as its prostitutes - who we're pretty sure are mostly men dressed in drag. Our estimate put the number of prostitutes on par with the number of trees - and we were near a park. They whistle at you and make kissing sounds. Nasty. We also met some funny characters, notably: Mr. Canadian Tuxeo, Mr. Coffee, and Mr. Camera (among a few others who aren't very notable). Mr. Canadian Tuxedo was a man who liked his denim. Denim pants, denim jeanjacket, and a flannel shirt underneath. He seemed drunk and came up to us and started slurring in French asking us for something. Or maybe he wasn't slurring, I dont speak the language... but at any rate, he was pissed that we didn't speak French. Mr. Camera was a weird guy who was muttering to himself and started talking to us as the train station opened up. He had 5 cameras and was talking about how he's going around the world taking pictures of stuff - but doesn't have enough film. At any rate, he was definitely mentally deranged. Finally, Mr. Coffee was a guy who looked like the late Bob Ross (you know, that T.V. painter guy?) and was missing the tip of one of his fingers. We concluded that he wanted us to give him the money for a cup of coffee, but ofcourse it was a lost cause for him.

Anyways, we made it into Amsterdam, checked into our hostel, and grabbed a nap, as we didn't sleep the night before. Friday was mostly just walking around, experiencing the city, and ofcourse we had to walk through the notorious red-light district. I had heard rumors that the redlight district is kind of sketchy and you have to watch out for pick pockets, but I realized that there was no chance of that happening. No man walking through there would dare take his hands out of his own pockets, and certainly no straight man would venture near another mans pockets to try and steal a wallet (but don't worry Mom, I had that anti-pickpocket neck thingy on the entire time anyways).

Saturday we made it to the Anne Frank house and to the Heineken Brewery Tour (which was cool, but admittedly the Guinness tour blew it out of the water). Anne Frank's house was not what I thought it would be. I imagined it would be some run-down cottage-type house, but it was actually a really nice place. I guess the stereotype about Jews and money isn't a recent one. Anyways, there's really not a whole lot of exciting adventures to talk about in Amsterdam, but it was a great city. The architecture is BEAUTIFUL, the interlocking canal system is really neat, and the people are so nice. It seems a lot of Europeans I've run into dislike tourists, especially Americans, but the dutch were incredibly helpful and nice. Ofcourse, this is probably because they're a society raised on drug use, so that would explain why they're so laid back and apathetic about.. well, everything. Anywho, we woke up on Sunday, grabbed breakfast, and rewound our trip home to Dublin. The return journey was significantly less eventful. It probably sounds like a pretty boring weekend from this post, but it was relaxing and we had a great time seeing the city and socializing with the locals. It's a place I wouldn't mind living. The countryside is beautiful, the architecture is beautiful, the culture is so laid back and relaxing, the people are great, and it's one of the European economic capitals. Amsterdam - kick ass city.