Dank je wel Amsterdam!

Me and my buddy Sean (aka Tubbs) sitting in first class to Amsterdam! Sean works for Delta and hooked up tickets for almost nothing...

Day 1

This is unbelievable! I’m sitting on this big ass jet heading to Amsterdam in first class! I’ve never flown first class before and I feel like royalty. These seats are amazing! I have my own entertainment system, with movies on demand and watching this great flick called Cyrus. I just finished a gourmet meal of beef tenderloin, shrimp scampi, snow peas and this sweet creamy risotto which was one of the tastiest things I’ve ever eaten. Prior to this, they gave us these seasoned artichoke hearts, smoked salmon, something else that was like a potato with delicious seasoning along with squash soup. And right before the main course, brought out a nice field green salad with yellow peppers, blue cheese, walnuts and balsamic vinaigrette. For desert, it was cheesecake with chocolate and strawberry topping. They served all of this with a delicious Malbec red wine. I’ve always wondered what it was like to sit up in first class and to think I’m doing this for $150 (Sean said this ticket may be upwards of $6000 if we had to pay!) He can do this whenever he wants to wherever he wants on the drop of a hat, not a bad perk. Hoping he can hook up another trip, talking about Argentina or Thailand, we’ll see….

So, since I don’t have internet connection for the rest of the trip, I’m going to try and chronicle the trip sequentially on Microsoft Word then cut and paste...
It’s 10:30 and by the time we get there, it’s going to be the next morning so time to take my pills and try to get some sleep. I don’t think it’s going to be that tough as this seat reclines completely flat, I have a pillow and blanket not to mention a lumbar massage feature on the chair that just rolls up and down my back right where my disease and herniated discs are located, ahhhhh. I can’t imagine life being any better right now! This is going to be a great trip :D

Last day:

Ok, back here on my last day! Been going pretty much nonstop except for naps and it’s an early night tonight so I figured I’d bust out the recap ;)
Overall, it’s been a total blast  Amsterdam is a visually beautiful, thoughtful wonderful city. The food is really good everywhere, there’s a ton of things to do and the people here really have a great time. Unfortunately, the locals’ view of Americans isn’t exactly positive. Sean and I investigated to try and find out why this was and the predominant response was the whole war thing (mainly Iraq). I think there has always been some disdain of American politics here but with that said, American culture is everywhere you look, crazy. There’s tons of McDonalds, Burger Kings, KFC’s etc. and of course the American pop culture like music is pretty strong. Still, the people just seem to be stand offish (word?) and we tried to make friends with other tourists which proved to be a good strategy thankfully. Me and Sean actually met some friends at the Anne Frank museum (which was interesting) and hung out with them on Sunday night.


Funny, I'm almost positive this band is from Detroit!!


Some friends we met from Australia, taken at the Little Buddha which is a really cool place


Having lunch at one of the many outdoor cafe's



Of course there are some elements of Amsterdam that are pretty striking and quite different from what we have in our major cities. This brings me to the Red Light District. I had heard about it several times and pictured a seedy, dirty place but was surprised when it turned out to be neither of those things. Yes, there are certain areas where there are prostitutes in windows and the smell of marijuana wafts down the streets constantly but never did I ever feel unsafe or sketchy. I did feel weird walking down the thing streets and seeing these young beautiful girls standing in the windows advertising themselves and wondering why in the world they were subjecting themselves to this… But then thought about the Craigslist scandal here in the states where girls are being forced into the sex trade by thugs literally not being able to leave their hotel rooms and being abused etc. I don’t know, I don’t advocate prostitution and sincerely felt sad for these girls but at least they’re not being abused and the trade is tightly regulated. Plus, back in 2006, the city bought back one third of the buildings that were being used for prostitution and required the new business to be something besides prostitution, i.e. a restaurant, bar or my next topic, a coffee shop… Yup, not only can you go in and order a delicious café, you can order marijuana from a menu! This trade, like the prostitution trade is pretty tightly regulated and definitely a part of the culture here which I think is one of the main reasons a lot of tourists visit. In fact, the locals were really skeptical when they asked me what I was doing here and my answer didn’t include prostitution or spending all day in the coffee houses. It is really fun experiencing a different culture and saying Amsterdam is different than home is an understatement…


This is the red light district! If you look closely, there are people of all ages walking around and it's not much different than other parts of the city... You see the red lights when you pass some of the alleys that run parallel to the street. The coffee shops are everywhere, even outside the RLD.


All kinds of people walking around the RLD


Inside BABA coffee shop, don't breathe in, haha

One of the coolest things to me is the fact that the main form of transportation here is the bicycle! I actually rented one today to buzz around the city one last time and it was so much fun! Someone said that there are over 100 million bicycles in Holland and I can believe it. It’s pretty crazy though as the locals ride their bikes so fast and you really have to be careful not to get run over while walking around! In fact, I was more worried about getting hit by a bike than a car or tram. When I rented my bike, I really had to get used to it and was constantly getting passed on the paths by the locals ringing their bells at my slow ass! I was thinking to myself as I was riding today how cool it is that they ride bikes everywhere as the air is so much cleaner, they’re not dependent on oil from terrorist countries and there’s a certain aesthetic beauty about people riding around on bikes in such a scenic city with all the beautiful buildings, churches, cobblestone streets and the canals which are everywhere. The canals are a great source of transportation as well and seem like a really nice thing to do with your significant other on a romantic occasion.


Bikes everywhere!!


Taken right across the street from the hotel, notice the almost full moon above the monument


One of the many glass top canal boats in the city...

Anyway, I’ve been able to enjoy this while feeling relatively well except for a couple of bouts of nausea/vomiting (probably from getting my pill schedule a little mixed up because of the major time change) and of course the chronic back pain.

I could really get used to continuing to travel outside the country like this and hoping for another trip to somehow come together soon! Sean mentioned I can use his buddy pass whenever I want so I might plan something soon, say after the holidays.

Thanks for reading this long post and hope everyone is having a nice week :)

Cheers!