Tegan & Ingrid's world adventure

Another 5.30am get up saw us on another ‘crack of dawn’ train bound for Copenhagen. We made use of the smooth Danish ride to catch up on the sleep we had lost.
Copenhagen is a beautiful city; with friendly people and a fantastic mix of old city and new metropolitan style as well.
After exploring the old town, drifting down back streets littered with cafés and restaurants, window shopping in the main walking street and sampling some much welcomed cheap Asian food (the first we had had since leaving Thailand), we made our way to Tivoli, the inner city Carnival theme park. Tivoli had only just re-opened that same day after undergoing a face lift for the upcoming Christmas season. This year’s theme is ‘a Russian Christmas’. The place was absolutely magical, trees were filled with fairy lights, buildings were aglow and decorated in true Russian style and there were even Reindeer grazing in the show grounds. The rides looked terrifyingly inviting as well. However after realising that each ride would set us back around $15AUD we decided to give it a miss. Just before we left we sampled some good Danish Christmas traditions; Ӕbleskiver - a small doughnut-like ball which you eat with icing sugar and jam, and Glᴓgg – a Nordic variation on Mulled Wine.

We also visited the Carlsberg Brewery which was fascinating learning the history of Beer (or Oel in Danish) in the north of Europe, and of course sampling some of Copenhagen’s finest. Surprisingly, the Brewery site is not only used for purposes of the Beverage variety, but also houses a University Arts campus, live music venues and even a live-in Science Laboratory which is quite sort after. Each year the Carlsberg board gets presented with tenders from all over the globe from scientists wishing to come and reside and research within this facility – pretty cool.

Our stay in the Danish capital was a brief one, and before we knew it, we were back on a train. This time an overnight express to Amsterdam. The train ride was OK – it had its pros and its cons. Terrible mattresses made for a restless night, however we did manage to score a 4 berth cabin to ourselves which was pleasantly welcomed.

What can I say about Amsterdam – well, if Berlin is a mecca for artists, Amsterdam is a mecca for British vacationers wanting to get drunk, stoned and laid – and not necessarily in that order. No, it’s not really that bad. While there are a LOT of British tourists, Amsterdam is also an amazing city. Yes it has legalised prostitution,  yes it has a very lenient attitude towards Marijuana, but even besides these factors, the city itself is not only stunningly beautiful, with a canal system to match Venice and Cathedrals to rival Paris, but also has a cosy cosmopolitan feel to it once you get out of the touristy areas. However, I’ll elaborate on the main reasons people come here; the Red light district and the ‘Coffee-shops’.

The Red-light district is a section of the old town that for centuries has been a place where prostitution has been legalised. The streets, canals and alleys are lined with floor to ceiling windows flooded with red light where ladies (and, in some cases, men) advertise themselves to the passers-by for a ‘good time’. Prices obviously vary with ‘service’ but generally 50Euro will buy someone 15mins of company. In addition to the windows, the district contains many live show theatres as well as countless adult retail stores. The district runs 24-7 and is constantly filled with clientele.
However, there is so much more to the Red-light district than is on the surface. Given that the act of prostitution is legal in Amsterdam, the district actually encourages a more ‘positive’ mind-set (hard to explain). The women are selling their services as choice of profession rather than lifestyle. The district attracts women from all over the world to come and work in Amsterdam; they are generally healthier both physically and mentally, and also receive all the same rights and benefits as any other profession including healthcare and their own Union.

The consumption on Marijuana and Hashish in Amsterdam today is in fact not technically legal. It was legal for many many years, however today things are a little different. As with many issues throughout Amsterdam’s history, laws have been surprisingly flexible and the authorities have gladly looked the other way where revenue is concerned. The Marijuana scene in Amsterdam is so lucrative to the city that the authorities and businesses have now got a ‘code’ of sorts so as to ensure the consumption can continue. This is how the world famous Amsterdam ‘Coffee-shop’ was born. Nowadays, if anyone unhappy with the fact that the law is technically being broken walks up to a Policeman in Amsterdam and states “Hey, they’re smoking Marijuana in there! Isn’t that illegal?!” The Policeman will simply answer with “Good citizen you must be mistaken! The sign on the window clearly reads ‘Coffee shop’, so they couldn’t possibly be smoking Marijuana in there!” Love it.

Needless to say we explored the Red light district for a while – it was hard not to seeing as our hostel was inside of it. The area didn’t seem dangerous at all, and we always felt perfectly safe. I have to say I was a little surprised at how really beautiful the women were. I mean, in movies ‘hookers’ are nearly always made out to be not so attractive and with drug issues, etc. But here all were quite beautiful (even besides the make-up and revealing outfits). We giggled our way through a few sex shops and even through 2Euros in a peep show booth for the fun of it – we could definitely say we experienced the red light district after all that.

Later, we found ourselves at the Coffee shop made famous by the film Ocean’s 12. It was really intricately decorated in a psycodelic theme- the kind you’d see in a 70’s music clip, yet still felt cosy. The menu was unlike anything we’d ever seen. There was your usual coffee and tea selection, a few pastries, then the madness section: around 20 different varieties of Weed and 10 types of Hashish all varying in strength. We thought we’d stick to the edible kind firstly and so we ordered a ‘Space cake’ each. Ignorant and curious we both ate all of our cake (later we were told that ½ of one would’ve been plenty for first timers). I’ll just say the experience was ‘interesting’.

On a more serious note, we visited the Anne Frank house museum, which is the actual hiding place of the two families during the German occupation of Amsterdam in WWII. It was quite a moving visit seeing how little space the families had, and reading accounts of everyday life in there. We also spent plenty of time wondering the gorgeous streets and canals, exploring the café’s (the actual coffee kind) and second hand clothing shops.

After we left Amsterdam we travelled into Belgium, to the little ‘town’ of Duffel. I say ‘town’ because the amount of towns between Antwerp and Brussels are so great that it seems to be never ending suburbs between the two big cities. We were in Duffel to have our very first Couch Surfing experience. Some of you may know that before we left Australia we had been hosting a few Couch surfers in our home. Well now it was our turn to be hosted. And we were being hosted by none other than a couple that we had hosted in Doreen back in February; Steven and Elke. We had only met them once before, but it was like seeing old friends again. It was a strange but fantastic experience. So our first surfing experience was a really great one – plus we also got to play with their new kitten Wannus (soothing our Simba withdrawal symptoms if only for a little while).
While we were there we took a bike ride to a nearby town with a funny little tradition. The towns folk love to knit, and they also love to cover random objects through the town in knitted apparel. We saw Church steps with woollen hand railing and even Socks on a sculpture of some sheep. Very cute!

Oh and I almost forgot, we continued our culinary adventure with Belgian Beer, Chocolate and Waffles. SO GOOD!