Out and About in Amsterdam (Pt I)

When I first entered my place, initially I thought that I would be staying alone. My hopes dissipated when about 30 minutes later, another person walked through the door. He was fairly chatty and within 20 minutes or so, I learned that Brandon was 24 years old, hailed from Cleveland, worked at his parents' construction company ("My parents are really rich" I believe was a phrase he used early on, too), decided to travel alone to London, Amsterdam and Berlin, was a self-proclaimed computer nerd who used to struggle with talking to people, and thought he was very good-looking (yes -- within the first few minutes, he told me that he thought he was a "hot" guy -- who does that??). Anyway, he seemed friendly enough, so that first night we decided to go out together.

We hit up a very mediocre pub to grab some food and a couple of drinks and then we decided to check out the Red Light District. In stark contrast to Bangkok, this area was reasonably clean. It stretched across two canals and several secondary blocks. There were prostitutes, a sex museum, live sex shows, coffee shops, hotels, bars, and several occurrences of Euro-trash drug dealers walking by whispering, "Coca? X?"

I now know why these areas are called, "Red Light" districts. Along the row houses, the prostitutes hung out behind a windowed door. They tried to entice their potential customers by dancing, clawing at the door, banging on the door, winking, or anything else that came to their mind. An illuminated red light above the window signifies a female prostitute while an illuminated blue light signifies the ladyboys (Brandon knew about this, and clued me into it). 

It's generally frowned upon to take pics of the prostitutes we learned from a passerby, so this is one of the only shots I have of the street.   

[Delicious Irony -- This is a Christian hostel located on a block adjacent to the largest Red Light District street]

We did see some unfortunate drunken souls that may have forgotten this key bit of information), and walked through the blue doors -- side note; do you get a refund in that situation? Hmm.

We decided to drop in a coffee shop and Brandon picked up the Amnesia. From there we hit up a bar and had several drinks amongst the multitude of "kids" that, in many cases, looked no older than 15 years old.  At this point, Brandon shared that he had once joined a "pick-up artist" group in Cleveland that would meet and discuss ways to manipulate women in order to get their numbers or to sleep with them.  He claimed that he left the group after awhile because all of the guys were pretty douchey (gee?  ya think?), and because he had become so good at it that he no longer needed any help (ugh!  please make this conversation stop!).  Of course, like most blowhards, in the time I spent with him, I did not see him ever successfully use these "talents."   

We walked around a bit more and headed home to try the Amnesia. On our way, we stopped in a McDonald's -- ugh! I must've been drunk to enter a McDonald's -- where the line was insane. As I waited to order, I felt something (or someone) crashing into my back. I turned and a drunk girl apologized for running into me. A few seconds later, she put her head on my shoulder and appeared to have passed out. I guess she wasn't entirely passed out, because as I moved forward, she moved with me. Brandon laughed and her friend tried to peel her off me. It was comical.

We made it home and joined the smoking room where we met a 19 year old guy, about 4'10" who claimed to be a Saudi Arabian prince. He looked like a smaller version of Fat Albert, and had a cockiness level that rivaled Brandon's (which isn't easy to do). Two other 20 year olds surrounded me. Needless to say, the majority of the conversation was brutal as they all delved into the meaning of life (this, coming from people that haven't even finished their junior years of college -- ugh!!). I sat back, ate my Mcburger and watched the cat move ever so slowly across the tile floor.