AmsterDAMN!

Oh, hey. Look who I found in Holland.

So, this is the story of how Michaela and Evan went to Amsterdam for St. Patrick's Day Weekend, slept in an airport, drank beer and stared at prostitutes, went to several gay clubs, saw the Anne Frank house and other museums, and watched a man dressed as a giant banana skip rope for money.

And you thought there might be a slight possibility that this would be boring.

Our tale begins on Wednesday night, when I flew out of Nice to the Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg airport, where I met up with Evan at around 10PM. We had not seen each other for six months, and it was a most joyous reunion. One that lasted for several hours at that, because, as Evan put it so eloquently, "Now we're just getting to the really fun part, where we have to spend the night in this airport."

Here are things they do at airports in the middle of the night: Jackhammer stuff.

Our flight left for Amsterdam at 6AM, so this was the cheapest and most efficient way to do it. (Or at least the cheapest way.) We slept on a bench in front of creepy children's coin operated rides. If you're going to sleep in an airport, that's not a bad place to do it, as there was pretty much no one else there and we were relatively undisturbed, if not hot messes to behold the next morning. You haven't really lived until you've slept in an airport. You're not really proud of yourself, but at the same time there's a great sense of accomplishment in having done so.

Alas, we slept for the whole flight to Amsterdam, took the train from Schiphol to the Amsterdam Centraal Station, and then the tram to our hostel.

As you can see, this shit was confusing as fuck.

Our hostel was run by charming Middle Eastern men, and also featured the world's steepest staircase. Our room had two bunk beds, and we met our roommates later--two boys from Boston studying abroad in London. I believe, if I heard correctly last night, that one of them hired a prostitute, and "it" (whatever "it" involved) lasted 6 minutes. So there's that. The nice things about having stoners for roommates is that they're tremendously chill and easygoing, and are also often not there, choosing instead to frequent Amsterdam's "coffeeshops" (fine

dispensaries of that "marijuana" drug the kids are using these days). We spent the first day just walking around Amsterdam and exploring and struggling with the trams. Amsterdam is like a little fairytale village, with lots of pretty bridges and rivers and cobblestone streets, colorful things and lovely architecture. I spent much time just walking around and going, oh wow, this is so pretty! Despite it's collection of weed and whores, there isn't a vice-like air about the city. At night it just feels like Halloween. We found the gay bars. And some swans. And made

some videos about the swans. We wandered around some more, had pizza in the square, and then went back to the hostel and slept and slept and slept until dinner. Our hostel directed us to this little

Mediterranean restaurant which was cheap and excellent, and had a blessed blessed thing France has been lacking--FLAVORS AND SPICES IN THE FOOD! Oh it was glorious.

We went and walked around the Red Light District at night, and you might think you're prepared for it, but you are not. I didn't realize the girls were on street level, and they're just all up in the windows, life-size next to you, with red lights around the windows and blacklights illuminating their bikinis and lingerie (or lackthereof). Evan and I walked around and stared at them and had a wonderfully hilariously ironically profound discussion about women's rights and heteronormativity.

This is the thing about the prostitutes in Amsterdam. They are, for the most part, surprisingly really hot and fairly young. I'd guess most of them were around Evan's and my age. My feelings regarding legalized prostitution in theory are that women should have the right to choose what to do with their bodies. However, at least in America, it is very rare that they actually choose that decision as opposed with being faced with coercion or lack of other options. I don't know how this works in Amsterdam, and one of the topics of our ironic conversation was how much we'd love to hire a prostitute and just interview them about what it's like and how they decided to do it. Hear stories. Sex workers are people too! A lot of them looked really bored, and they'd be shaking their ass or touching their boobs and also texting. I laughed pretty hard at that. One of them was wearing glasses like mine. The incongruence of that was also hilarious, and I laughed and smiled at her and was like, fuck yeah! in solidarity! I don't think she appreciated it necessarily. She was probably mad I was stealing all that business (namely--Evan) from her. I was really hoping one of them would aggressively try to get his attention so that I could slap him in jealousy and be like DO YOU THINK SHE'S PRETTIER THAN ME??? If only.

The next morning we went out for pancakes at a restaurant called, shockingly, "Pancakes!" which was terribly good. The Dutch are famous for their pancakes. We went to the Anne Frank house, where who should we bump into but Jenn and Karnig! This was not particularly a surprise, as they were spending the weekend in Brussels/Hassel and were spending Friday in

Amsterdam. The Anne Frank house was honestly kind of underwhelming due to much of it

being re-created, other than the things Anne glued to the walls, which is crazy, but still fantastic to get to see and say I've been there. We parted ways with Jenn and Karnig and got fries covered in mayonnaise, (a specialty of the Netherlands, Friday was our Traditional Food Day) before strolling through the park to the "I amsterdam" sign. For the most part it's against our religion to take too many touristy pictures (a doctrine mostly instated over there only being two of us, so it's not even possible) but with the sign it's rather obligatory.

Fuck yeah, initials.

We went to the Van Gogh museum, which was really cool. Spent quite a bit of time walking around there and reading everything and staring at paintings. I feel like I appreciate museums even moreso now in Europe. The things they have are so cool and things you've heard about a million times but then right there it's the sunflowers!! And you just stare at it like, holy shit. This was it. He touched it. This is the painting. This happens at each museum with famous paintings and it's really outstandingly remarkable and profound. Also I saw a Keeshond. I got really excited. I forgot they're the national dog of the Netherlands! And of my heart. Just kidding. Not really. Here is the one I saw.

In case you did not know him, my family also owned a Keeshond named Teddy for much of my life, who was the most beautiful and also dumbest dog in history.

Teddy. <3

We went out to dinner at traditional hole-in-the-wall Dutch place, where I had croquettes that were UNBELIEVABLY DELICIOUS (thank you LonelyPlanet!) and spent the evening exploring the debauchery of Amsterdam. We went out to several gay clubs, including one called the Queen's Head, which DESPITE BEING OWNED BY A DRAG QUEEN was sufficiently lacking in them, ran into Jenn and Karnig on the tram and then at a club called Montmartre (which was not unlike if the Rainforest Cafe was a tiny, bumpin gay bar) which was terribly fun, and Karnig requested Toxic, and that was that. We also stopped into an Irish pub briefly to welcome in the midnight-becoming of St. Patrick's Day! Kiss me I'm Scottish.

The next morning, Evan and I slept till noon and I did not wear green and pinched myself. We then had a substantial lunch at only the finest of Dutch restaurants.

Spent the afternoon wandering through the streets and then settling outside a pub in the Red Light District, where we had beers and watched the prostitutes (not the A-team during the day, I have to say) and people partying in the street, including a man dressed as a banana. He was quite popular with the drunken crowds.

All in all it was a thoroughly fantastic and fitting St. Patrick's Day weekend/weekend in Amsterdam, and now I am ready for a very hot shower and to sleep for about a million years. Bisous. xx