Amsterdam a city of bicycles, bridges and brownies (and I’m not talking about the kind your grandma bakes).
Amsterdam although often mistaken as the capital of the Netherlands,
it is definitely a capital of culture. A place that turns a blind eye
on drugs and prostitution and has a pretty liberal attitude all round,
except of course when it comes to the bike lane. Let’s just say I
wouldn’t want to cross a Dutchman on a bike lane if I was obscuring his
or her path.
The
funny thing is how normal the people of Amsterdam are…they weren’t
stoned sex-phenes growing magic mushrooms in the back of there organic
veggie patch but more quite a serious looking bunch, with good looks,
height and a sense of education and conservatism. I guess who can blame
them I would be pretty serious or at least seriously pissed off if
herds of excitable tourists out to score some pot and a prossie raided
my town every night as well.
I must say I could help but be an excitable tourist though too…although I wasn’t on the look out for a prossie.
I had always been curious to walk down the red light district and check out a coffee shop or two.
After
a leisurely and liquor lubricating cruise down the canal with the
contiki clan. We were now being hurriedly ushered down the cobble
stoned streets of the red light district to hit up a ‘cultural show’
deep in the labyrinth or rather in the labia of one very ‘cultural’
girl.
Bored
window girls illuminated by a red haze, idly texting on cell phones
lined the narrow streets. Oblivious or perhaps just uncaring by the
herds of tourists staring in bewilderment through the glass, like
children at a zoo. The assortment of lingerie clad girls lazily lean
over very hospital- esque bunks ready to pull the white curtain shut
and perform an examination…well I guess that is what happens, just
perhaps not a medical examination. I am amazed at how sterile and
normal it all seems. As if rooting perfect strangers for a buck or 200
Euros is a perfectly acceptable line of work (well 200 Euros for a 10
min session- that is pretty good money).
Once
at the ‘Cultural Show’ we are greeted by an enthusiastic door man who
begins handing out free drink coupons and penis lollypops whilst
ushering us through the doors of an intimate velvet adorned theatre.
We
are given the front row. The show begins with no warm up, no now we are
about to see rampant sex on stage, no slow build up to the fact a now
very naked, expressionless couple are having sex on a rotating lazy
susan, as if rehearsing a choreographed series of yoga moves.
Mouth
open, slightly aghast, I am boggled in thoughts, I wonder how many
times a day they have sex, I wonder if they are a real couple as
announced, I wonder how a.) He keeps it up and b.) How she stays
lubricated and out of pain with her legs over her head like that. As
the curtain closes I am left pondering how ‘salute to the sun’ became a
sex position.
The
following acts involve a leopard-women doing a striptease to eye of the
tiger, a well-endowed man flinging his package around like he was
squatting flies and two more ‘real-life’ couples on the lazy susan.
By
this stage I have had without realizing had a fair bit to drink (you
know this is always the start of a good story). This was in order to
take the edge off what I was witnessing and witnessing with 60 or so
other people. Yeah I’ve watched porn but not with 60 other people in
the room or come to think of it not quite involving acts like this
one….with the exception of some bad porn watched in uni days…disguised
under the name Bare Bitch Project (Spin off of Blair Witch Project- you
can imagine how good that one was).
When
next thing I know a lady dressed in a costume from ‘Jane and Tarzan’
clutching a banana in her hand is asking for volunteers. I don’t know
if it was the alcohol, the egging on of 30 people, the look of sheer
desperation in the eyes of Jane or just the fact I felt I was being
dared and to not go up on stage would mean I had failed in giving
everything a go (something I promised myself when first coming
overseas).
So
up I went on stage. There I was under the bright lights standing where
I had just witnessed the last couple going at it doggy-style with Jane,
a banana and what looked like someone dressed in a giant ape outfit
with a throbbing hard on in the wings. This was not a Holy cow Batman
but more of a HOLY SHIT what have I gotten myself into moment.
The
music starts up and Jane starts dancing around, waving the banana
around like it was a golden oracle. In order to warm me up she has me
copy some moves she makes. It turns into a bit of put your right arm,
you put your right arm out, put your left arm in, put your left arm
out, put your bum in you put your bum out and you wave it all about. So
there we are doing the dutch porno version of the hockey pockey…the
music then dies down…the crowd is hushed…we are obviously being built
up for something. Jane goes down. Jane spreads her legs. Banana is
inserted. Banana is peeled.
Now comes my part…
I am handed a blind fold.
The music is building to a crescendo.
I am led to Jane. I am instructed to eat the banana. No turning back now. I pray I am going to get banana to go, hold the muff.
The
first mouthful of that banana was a welcome relief … that is until the
ape from the wings emerges with a giant strap- on and stats rubbing up
against me from behind, making animated and overly excited ape sounds.
The crowd bursts into fits of laughter as I make a hasty retreat to my seat.
Let’s just say I will never be able to look at a banana the same way again or an ape for that matter.
Next
stop was to a famous coffee shop. Now not to get you confused but a
coffee shop sells marijuana and a café sells coffee- go figure.
One
of the more happening and well known establishments, named after a
‘grass’ dwelling insect lured us in with promises of smoke ranging from
black widow to bubblegum and a selection of brownies. 
With
the confusion of having to press a button to light up a screen with an
extensive menu that could out- do the Cheesecake Factory - I went the
brownie route.
I
had been advised to only have half the brownie, wait an hour, then have
the other half. But that is like telling a small child to eat half
their ice cream and then wait an hour and eat the other half. Not going
to happen. I waited all about 5mins before devoring the second half of
my brownie. Feeling slightly mellow I still wasn’t satisfied. So I then
went on to a black widow. Never really being a Frenchie in the art of
smoking. I was more a Sandy.
Having only the year before been coached by my boyfriend how to
effectively smoke a joint. I went through the step-by-step
process…Suck. Swallow. Hold your breath. (God this sound like another
lesson a boyfriend once taught me). Slowly let the smoke come out your
mouth…
With
that I looked like a Class A TOOL standing there as if at a birthing
class trying to smoke a giant and now very wet joint, while a table
away were some rastas blowing smoke rings around me.
By this stage, I was well and truly up with the kites.
Now
the hard part, trying to find your way home admist a whole host of
challenges, including a now raging appetite, too many bright lights and
a maze of cobble- stoned streets. Realising it was only five minutes
until the last train departed to our out-of-town inn…an inebriated
brownie munching friend and myself left the group of rowdy Aussie
chicks in search of some ‘sweet ‘shrooms’ and attempted to locate the
train station.
It
took almost 15mins to find the train station which was across the road
from where we originally had started our search. It took 20 minutes of
much confusion and 5 train guard’s assistance to purchase a ticket to a
train which was supposed to have already left.
With
some stroke of luck we somehow (really I don’t know how) found and
boarded our train. Now not so lucky was another young lad on tour with
us from Dallas.
He
was found once the lights went on at the end of the sex show sucking
face with the lucky lady sitting next to him. Oblivious to the fact the
audience had turned its attention away from the stage and to Dallas and
his new tonsil tennis partner groping one another…god knows what would
have happened if there wasn’t an arm rest forcing the separation of the
two. Anywho…he and his mistress had decided to take an earlier train
back to re-enact some of what was seen on stage. Now equally as
confused once at the train station. Dallas hopes on a train to ask directions. Bad idea.
The doors shut.
Worse still, the particular train he got on was the last for the night.
One way to Germany please.
Not
only did he not get laid he ended up in the middle of somewhere.
Somewhere he couldn’t speak the language and somewhere he didn’t have
any money and somewhere he had to hitch a ride with a truck driver
through the night to get back to Amsterdam.
Lesson here: never get on an active train in a foreign country to ask directions.
The
following morning after knocking back a sickening cone of chips with
mayo and tomato sauce (Dutch specialty designed for stoners) I headed
off to see Anne Frank’s house. A little too bleary eyed from the night
before to fully appreciate the house that was the hiding place for the
young Jewish girl who was persecuted by the Nazis during World War Two,
and the famous diary she wrote there…but now satisfied I had done
something in Amsterdam besides get stoned and see a sex show.
Next
stop- the Heineken Brewery. A kooky bunch of Dutchmen must have had a
say in this place. What better then at the end of every exhibition
having a bar for a beer break of the famous amber substance. After
polishing off the free beer you arrive at a creative center where you
can be transported to a country-side in Holland to sing (in Dutch) to a
karaoke machine or perhaps you want to lounge around in a space capsule
and watch bad ads from the 80's.
After all the excitement expelled in Amsterdam it was time to get back on the bus...and sleep it off until the next stop...
