The bus ride from London to Amsterdam was hellish. So when I arrived to Amsterdam it was a beautiful sunny day but I was in a pisser of a mood, as you can imagine that means it wasn't good. No sleep, the bus driver was rude, the people on the were sick and hacking up death, ugh typical backpacker story probably. I found my hostel, The Flying Pig in Uptown without a problem - this city is quite small.
The first thing I did was look for a coffee shop (SURPRISE). I stumbled upon Tweedies coffee shop located in uptown near the gardens. So I go in, nobody is in there except for the dude with the dreads behind the counter. Yes, it smells like weed.
To everyone in my family who doesn't understand what 'coffee shops' are in Amsterdam, they are places you can go and buy and smoke different types of Marijuana and also have your coffee or tea with it. It's completely legal here in the Netherlands, prostitution is also legal.
so anyway, I sit down at the counter and survey the area. It's pretty quiet this early in the morning. To play it cool I just ordered a hot tea and sat there drinking it for about a half hour until I felt a little more comfortable before I tried anything else. I don't like waking into surprises and leaving disoriented without testing the waters first.
After that I wandered around the town for a few hours, soaking it all in, the canals and the bridges over them are the most charming parts of this city aside from the architecture. The buildings here remind me of the ceramic Christmas villages that light up from inside, every Christmas my mother sets this little village up around the tree. That's what the architecture looks like (if my mother is reading this)
The people are not the nicest people, ironically, being in such a laid back city. I feel as though everyone can tell that I'm American even without me speaking a word. Sometimes the feelings a a little daunting but I just go on with it knowing that I am just passing through for a couple days and keep my cool about me.
I've been into a few of the coffee shops, the aesthetic styles of these places range from dug-out Rastafarian dwellings to VERY posh / fancy shops. They really do look like novelty shops, some of them, like candy stores.
I'm not exactly what to do today, it is raining a little bit, I want to go see a few more museums like the torture museum and perhaps the national museum, I went to the sex museum yesterday - wow.
Amsterdam's social and humanities structure is centered around sex and drugs.
There is a Red Light District here. I happened to walk through it yesterday, girls are dancing in the windows and pointing at passerbys to come into their dens. I just laughed to myself at all of them, it seems all so surreal, like not even real at all, or like this city is a giant theme park here to entertain everybody and all the tourists who come here for only 2 good reasons at all.
So yes, tonight I leave around 11:00pm and I will be waking up in Berlin, Germany tomorrow morning WOOHOO !
