This was sound advice from our tour guide in Amsterdam. Like I said before, there are a lot of bikes in Amsterdam, and they do not like to stop for anyone, particularly anyone with a map. We took a free tour (well, we tipped her a lot at the end) of the city - which was actually a really awesome tour. There's a company that runs free tours in a lot of major cities in Europe, and our guide was really great. We learned a ton about Amsterdam that we wouldn't have known otherwise, and saw a lot - particularly because the tour was three hours long.
After our tour we ate pancakes (yum- though it made me reminiscent of the Tavern and this supposed "close" of it which is going to happen in December) and went through the Anne Frank house. The house/museum is extremely well done and very sad, of course. Since bad weather has been our thing on this trip, it was raining when we left the museum, so we went and saw Bridesmaids. I was thwarted from seeing Harry Potter again. Apparently Amsterdam sells movie tickets like you would sell concert tickets, as in selling assigned seats. So they didn't have any seats together for the showing of un-3D Harry Potter. What the heck, Holland? But Bridesmaids was a good replacement!
We finally went out that evening; we had to go out if we were in Amsterdam! We went to our hostel bar and then decided to follow a pub crawl that was leaving the bar. We followed them through the Red Light District (which is an alien place, let me tell you - more on that later), discovered we'd need wristbands to get into their next bar, and went and sat in a different bar instead. Then we found another pub crawl, followed them, got into a bar and managed to swing two rounds of free drinks from them. This was entertaining, since we went to the bar to buy drinks and the bartender asked if we were with the pub crawl. I shook my head but Mark said, "What if I said we were?" and she shrugged and handed us the drinks (test tubes of Jaegermeister) they were handing out to the pub crawlers. Then as we were walking out of the bar with the group, they were filling everyone's test tubes with a drink, so we just held our test tubes out and got another round. Success!
The Red Light District really is bizarre. During the day it's fairly quiet, and all you see are sex shops and coffee shops (where you can smoke pot) and shops selling cannabis lollipops and energy drinks (ironic much?). And day and night there are lots of people smoking pot and there are literally prostitutes in windows everywhere - plus there are no open-container laws. But at night the streets are packed with people, and nobody is angry or out-of-control, they're just milling about and hanging out with friends, so it doesn't feel unsafe. Very strange. It was an experience, to say the least. And one night going out was probably enough, but we definitely had a good time.
Though here's another piece of advice from the tour guide: don't take pictures of the prostitutes. They will push open their windows, chase you down, grab your camera, and break it. Or they will throw a cup of piss at you, which they conveniently keep in the window for just such a purpose. No joke.
Anyway, the next day we had some time in Amsterdam, so we milled around, bought some souvenirs, and did a canal tour on a big touristy boat. Then we had to take a plane to Copenhagen (NOT FUN because it had propellers and it was sooo bumpy landing in Copenhagen - No, Mom, I am not exaggerating) which got majorly delayed, blah blah blah, and we didn't get into our hostel until after midnight. Ick. I am also thoroughly sick of hostels. But at least I can say I did it, since I guess anyone who travels in college is supposed to stay in hostels! Though I'm really looking forward to a normal hotel in Paris...
A last thought on Amsterdam: the parts that aren't the Red Light District are really nice - and not a prostitute for be found! The architecture is gorgeous and strange (all the houses lean in funny directions because, hello, they built their city on a swamp) and the canals are pretty. There are really cool house boats on a lot of the canals and everyone is amazingly friendly - and knows English! Amsterdam has definitely been my favorite city so far.
I'll do the Copenhagen updates tomorrow. This is bordering on the "too-long-of-a-post" zone. Bye!
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