So, Amsterdam…
Where to begin on this one?

Right, first off, you’ll more than likely end up at Schipol airport, which is massive. Picture the most massive airport terminal you can think of. No, more massive than that. And again. Yep, that’s how big it is. Bloody huge. Plus it’s a good introduction to the quirkiness of Holland, incorporating bars with names like “hello there!”.

We arrived in Amsterdam’s central train station via a train almost exactly like Paris’s RER (read: clean, fast, efficient and actually ON TIME!). There were no intercom announcements on board, but fortunately for us there were some loud Americans who basically broadcast the names of the stations for all the train to hear.

Dutch is a very funny language. It’s sounds like people speaking German backwards. If you’re not tantalized by learning a new language that sounds like that, fear not, for absolutely everyone in Amsterdam, with no exception, speaks English, This is rather handy, especially after wandering Mallorca trying to cope with the bare rudiments of Spanish. The Dutch accent is just plain weird. It’s like a mixture of cockney Australian, Danish and South African accents. This makes it very hard to understand some words, but overall its fine.

Right, Amsterdam itself. We’ll get the obvious out of the way. Amsterdam is indeed, without a shadow of a doubt, a den of vice. There are heaps of the famed “coffeeshops” about the town, but don’t expect good coffee from these places. Outside of these there are even more Bong shops, as well as a quite a few “smartshops”, which deal in legal alternatives to mind expanding drugs, as well as life, fresh (and smelly) magic mushrooms. Of all these, the smartshops have to be the coolest, just for their sheer counter-drug-culture value. They are also where I first heard my song of the month, but more on that later.

The red light district is the first one that I’ve seen that actually has red lights. In this area of town there are a lot of sex shops as well as the omnipresent booths, each of which contains a scantily clad gyrating lady of pleasure. To be honest, it’s nothing really special, although the “big fat trannies” as worth the trip for their comedy value alone.

The Dutch are a weird bunch. Most have had a total sense of humour bypass, are prone to staring, and some, like a certain wine shop owner are just downright rude without actually being insulting. This rule is not without exception, one such being the very helpful and funny chip stand owner we met, who in addition to making very nice chips, was also of a warm and amiable disposition.

For some reason, there are masses of Indonesian restaurants in Amsterdam. Indonesian food is very nice indeed. But be careful for one particular delicacy. They are pretty much potato crisps that have been re-fried then covered in a sort of hard toffee-syrup. For the first few moments it tastes very nice indeed. After this time, however, the toffee stuff turns out to be VERY, VERY SPICY! I mean excruciatingly spicy! You have been warned!

Amsterdam has three letters in its name which is also a big draw, the letters being a, r, and t. Obvious choices for art galleries would doubtless include the Van Gough museum, where you can get very close indeed to the said painter’s works, but more appealing to me was the Modern Art gallery next door, featuring works from Mondrian no less! I now have a poster. YAY!

Nightlife is well catered for too, and I personally recommend a trip to “BoomChicago!”, an improvisational stand up act that is bloody hilarious. www.boomchicago.nl.


Anyway, here’s some odds and ends I learned in Amsterdam:

Noodles are everything that spaghetti should be but isn’t.
Dutch folk music isn’t up to much.
The Dutch love their houseplants.
No, not THOSE houseplants.
(You can get the seeds for those houseplants if you REALLY want them)
Pannekaaken with Stroop are best avoided unless you like the taste of musty sugar.
One place you won’t find the German tourists is at the Anne Frank house.
Jungle Formula insect repellent is also a potent herbicide.
The weather is VERY variable in the Netherlands.
Strip joints’ doormen will quite loudly pitch their product as “Grade A filth and sleaze” on the street. In front of small children.
Some parents will drag small children into red light districts.
Amsterdammers are hacked off with sex and drugs (and clogs).
Marijuana is a pretty plant; if you’d just let it bloody grow!


And my music pick of the month is “Hands Around My Throat” by Death in Vegas
It’s groovy, don’t you know.