Amsterdam

Bud, bikes & bevs

Amsterdam instantly met every expectation, after hopping off a 12 hour bus, my nose was filled with the smell of pot even at the bus station just outside of town. It was a welcoming 9 degrees- gotta love European summer- so after a momentary attempt of being brave and negotiating the foreign departure boards at the train station, I took the lazy way out and hopped in a cab. Even from the end of the lane way I could hear loud music pumping, but I was surprised to see it was bursting from my hostel, not from a club like I had originally thought. 

Despite the reception being filled with people and loud music I was too tired and grumpy about the freezing cold weather to socialise so I went straight to bed, feeling nervous about the daunting task ahead of me the next day.. Making friends.

Flying solo was not as fun as it was made out to be and my feeble attempt at befriending two Brazilian girls while we brushed our teeth in our dorm, resulted in a 10sec exchange followed by some very awkward silence! I headed down to breakfast honestly feeling sick to my stomach, and invited myself to sit down with two girls who funnily enough turned out to be from Melbourne, Shell & Lauren. I soon found out that they were doing the free walking tour that morning so I decided I would latch onto them and turn their duo into a trio! We headed off on our walking tour and our guide Stefan, started out by telling us we were all going to freeze, and he was right, one jumper was definitely nowhere near enough, I felt as though a few fingers had fallen victim to frostbite by the end.

The tour was a great way to see Amsterdam and more importantly, give me a chance to force myself onto these girls. We walked around for 2.5 hours and pretty much covered the whole of tiny Amsterdam, and I got my first glimpse of the window girls in the red light district... After the tour we went to the pub for lunch and a chance to ask the guide every single question we could think of about what to do in Amsterdam. The girls had really bad jet lag so my plan of hanging with them all day sort of back fired, but I walked back to the hostel with them and then walked around exploring a bit and bought a scarf to try and protect me from the elements. Then I went to sit in my room because I couldn't think of anything to do except feel sorry for my lonely self. Then one of my roomies came in, Calvin from Canada and he invited me to go for a smoke, and considering I hadn't yet and in was in Amsterdam- when in Rome, hey?

I sat and talked to Calvin for a while before I met his buddy Kevin (such confusing names) and then went to grab some food and Kevin tagged along, I was more than happy to have company. We ended up sitting down at a table for 2 in a Chinese restaurant and before it could get too cute I was like QUICK I have to go back to the hostel to meet the girls for a tour, so I grabbed the food and ran back to the hostel only to find a note saying they were tired and would be down for drinks at 10pm so luckily I had Kevin to hang out with, and he had a handy stash of vodka which he kindly shared.

Kevin went off to the toilet and a few Canadian boys came and took his place and before I knew it live music was blaring and we were all doing jäger shots, 4 shots for 10euro, I still cent get over how cheap alcohol is! I was having fun but had to yell so loud to talk to anyone and I needed some gal pals! I kept waiting for the girls to come down and after 4 jäger shots they finally arrived and we headed off to Winston Kingdom for a  dance. The night began with my favourite party trick doing the splits, and then hours of dancing until we were the last people in the club. 

I woke up to a horrible surprise, Amsterdam had not only starved me with it's gluten packed food, but it had also stolen my voice. I literally could not even make a sound, I went to get some water and ran into Lauren at the bar whose voice was completely in tact. I decided to set off solo considering I couldn't speak to anyone so I hired a bike (with great difficulty) and set off! I decided to ride around without looking at a map and with no destination In mind and see where I would end up. Within one minute I was already slightly discouraged as a near collision with a van caused me to swerve, get my tyre stuck in tram tracks and fly over the handlebars onto the road... Slightly embarrassing. I pushed on anyway and took some great selfies riding along, followed different cyclists for 5 minutes each and even found myself at the famous I Amsterdam sign. I finally gave in as light rain turned to hail, and made it back to the bike shop without any map before I got too drenched- success!!

I decided to go and check out some more traditional Amsterdam sights and visit the sex museum, I bumped into the girls on my way so they came along for what was to be the beginning of our sex focused day. The museum was full on to say the least and I left feeling quite dirty. Our next adventure was to FEBO, an amazing vending machine/shop which sells piping hot croquettes- the perfect idea for ending a big night out. To continue on lit sexual adventure for the day, the three of us headed to Dam Square to start our tour of the red light district which was very informative, and made me leave with a very different perspective on the whole thing after I learnt there are 8,000 sex workers in Amsterdam, with the majority being self employed and required to register at the Chamber of Commerce

like any other job. Apparently they are happy and love it, so good on them! We decided considering it wasn't prostitution and they loved it,it was completely okay to complete the last mission of our sex day and watch a live sex show. It was the most up close and personal thing ever and surprisingly I didn't feel dirty but I did feel very overwhelmed and after the 2 hour show was over, I was very ready to leave, so I headed to bed and got some sleep before a big day of travel to Berlin!