Amster-DAMN

High Hi from Amsterdam.

This trip vacation was something else.

Thank you, thank you, i'll be here all week.

So did Amsterdam rock Natasha or did Natasha rock Amsterdam? I think the verdict is that rock Natasha'd Amsterdam.

So what's the first thing you think of when you think of Amsterdam? Sex and drugs of course. Now me, I'm not a pervert like the rest of you and I think of tulips, windmills, wooden clogs, cheese and canals. Shame on you.

This weekend I got to see all of the above, and it was amazing. The word of 2006 is officially amazing.

Let me start with the stuff my innocent and pure mind first thought of, and I'll move to the juicy stuff later.

Amsterdam is absolutely gorgeous. A little sketch by night when all the weirdo's come out, but when they're sleeping during the day the whole city was very picturesque. All the buildings have one of 3 or 4 styles of roofs, and they are soooo cute! The whole city is built over water, they built canals to reclaim a lot of land from the sea, so there are at least as many canals as there are streets, and thousands and thousands of bridges spanning them. Also, everybody in the Netherlands (aka Holland) rides bikes. There are more bikes than people in Amsterdam, and approximately 20 000 are pulled out of the canals every year. Surprisingly, the biggest crime problem is bicycle theft. I'll explain the reason the cops don't crack down on it later, when I talk about the Dutch mentality and philosophy.

I spent much of the weekend dodging said cyclists, they're everywhere, and seem to consider traffic signs and lights to be merely a sometimes helpful suggestion. I grew to fear the sound of those little bells dinging. It's considered good sport to ring the bell right before the moment of impact. But what would a trip to Holland be without being almost hit by a cyclist, It's pretty much a 'must do'. Luckily I got my chance for revenge when I participated in an amazing 6 hour bike tour, lead by a guide with an elaborate sun died into his hair who's favorite topics were sex and drugs. Don't worry, I'll get there. Most of the tours I've taken so far have given a lot of info about the history of the city, which is sometimes interesting and sometimes not. I got some of that, but most of it was sex or drug related. This guy was totally into sex and drugs. Sweet.

The bike tour went through some of the city and then we headed out into the country to see the most adorable windmill in the entire world, I'm sure. Okay, so it's the only one in the entire world that I've ever seen, but seriously. Über-cute. From there we went to a cheese factory, met the cows, sampled some incredibly delicious cheese and watched how clogs are made. Apparently not only do they keep your feet warm, but they never sweat in them either. Everybody who worked at this cheese/clog place was absolutely insane. Apparently they (could have) based one of the characters from the Austin Powers Goldmember movie on this guy. I have no idea what that means, but that's what I heard. The cheese guy was ridiculous...walking around on only one clog and not making any sense. When the room filled up with French people for another tour he mentioned that he hated French. "You mean the language?" "No no I hate the people too. The whole country". Living on the edge this guy was.

Have I covered everything? Oh no I missed the tulips. I didn't actually see the fields, they were out of town and didn't have time for the trip, but seriously, tulips didn't even grow in Holland orginally. They imported them from Turkey I believe, so I think it's ok that I skipped this one.


NOW! What you've all been waiting on the edge of your seat for, the feature presentation....

SEX & DRUGS!!!

Marijuana isn't legal in Amsterdam, it's only tolerated. Prostitution, however is legal. At first I was thinking, those crazy Dutch, I can't believe they're totally cool with drugs and prostitution. But then my sunny tour guide informed me that this is not the case. There once was a politician in Holland that apparently had a lot of good ideas. One is known as 'The Harm Policy'. There are two parts to it, the first part being that if what you're doing isn't hurting anybody at all, then why make a fuss about it. The 2nd part is, that if the punishment for a crime causes more harm than the crime itself, then it's not a good punishment. E.g. a man gets caught stealing an apple so they cut off his hand. But this guy was a blacksmith, so now he can't work and feed his family. Oops. I really like that policy, I think it makes a lot of sense.

So why do they tolerate weed? Once upon a time Holland had the largest addiction rate to hard drugs. They needed to get rid of this reputation, and fast, so they started looking at all the drugs, keeping the harm policy in mind, and tried to figure out how they could fix this. Basically, when coffee shops weren't allowed anybody looking for weed had to go to a drug dealer. This contact with a dealer often lead to harder drugs, the dealer talking the client into buying something harder, maybe giving them a really good deal or even lacing the weed with something else in hopes of getting them addicted. Tricky. Allowing the coffee shops to exist functioned as a safe place where people could buy weed, removing the interaction with the dark and scary crime world, and allowing everything to be regulated. Now Holland has one of the lowest addiction rates to hard drugs. Isn't that BRILLIANT?!?!?! Hey, we have a big drug problem... lets make one of them ok, that'll fix it.

Prostitution! Before legalizing it, prostitutes had no rights. They didn't have police protection, couldn't open bank accounts, and couldn't vote among other things. For any protection at all a girl would have to go to a pimp, who would of course then take most of the money she earned. After legalizing it, now they have all of those things, which are really quite neccesary to live your life. So now there's one office where the girls can go and rent out a room for a night, most of them are doing it by choice. The rooms are equipped with panic buttons and the average time for police response is 1 minute. All the girls are also required to have monthly health tests, and if they don't show up or don't pass they're no longer allowed to work in the business, and so again surprisingly Amsterdam has a very low STD rate. Also, they can only rent one room at a time, so they can't rent one for another girl. The whole thing is very very regulated. Oh, and FYI, the standard price is 50 euros for 20 minutes, you can go as far as you want. For any special kinky requests the prices skyrocket from there. There's also a prostitute information centre where you can talk to girls who used to be prostitutes and even get a 'starter kit' in case you're interested in getting into the business. What could be in a prostitute starter kit, really? I wanted to get one to satisfy my curiousity, and for my scrapbook but we didn't find the place.

I bet you'll never guess in a million years how prostitution originated there. Many men left from Holland, and I forget where they were going and what they were doing, but I remember that either 60% or 40% of them died. I know, just call me Miss Details from now on. So their widows would go to the church for help, and get this, the church actually suggested that they do whatever they can to bring some money in to help out the church. The church PROMOTED prostitution. Again, the details are a little fuzzy but I just might even remember hearing that that's how prostitution orginated. Makes the church seem a little hypocritical with the whole "sex is bad, don't ever touch each other or you'll go straight to hell" campaign.

In fact the biggest church in town is located right in the middle of the red light district surrounded by brothels and sex shops. I checked out the red light district, and basically this is what it's like. There are sex shops EVERYWHERE. Live sex shows all over the place, the whole area is bathed in red light, there are girls in the windows wearing almost nothing who tap or bang on the glass to try to get your business. But beware, if the light in the window is blue instead of red it means 'penis included'. Doesn't necessarily mean "male", just "penis included". I went to the sex museum and saw the biggest penis in the world. Literally. The guy's name is Long John Silver, and it goes to his knee. I don't know how he gets it up without passing out due to lack of blood to the brain.

I actually accidentally booked a Christian youth hostel this weekend. Don't get me wrong, I sure do believe in God, but i felt like a naughty highschool girl sneaking in at night trying not to get caught doing 'bad' things after being out late visiting the city, bars, seeing the sights, including the red light district. I was worried the whole hostel was going to pray for my redemption or kick me out. They had really good breakfast though, i got to enjoy french toast and pancakes, which sure beats the usual bread, cheese and jam that hostels serve.

Oh one more random fact: They pull an average of 60 bodies from the canals every year too. That's pretty much a body a week. Didn't I say earlier that bike theft was the biggest deal? It is. Most of the deaths are accidental, and they can tell by two reasons.
A) Most of the bodies are male.
B) They have their fly down.
Most of the deaths in Amsterdam are caused by people getting loaded, trying to take a piss in the canal and falling in and drowning.
Getting back to that bike thing, the police DID try to stop it, but then they had junkies holding people at knife point stealing their bike trying to make some cash for their next hit. Here comes the harm policy again: Trying to stop bike theft was creating a bigger problem than just leaving it alone, so now, that's what they do.

The moral of the story (yes, there are morals in Amsterdam) is that you should do Amsterdam. Or let Amsterdam do you, whichever, but the fact is that there is something there for everybody, whether you're looking for windmills, tulips and canals (like me of course) or to participate in all kinds of activity that'll get you thrown in jail elsewhere in the world.

The end.

Prague, Czech Republic

After some intense detective work, I came to the conclusion that Prague was NOT underwater, nor was it at risk of becoming underwater during my stay!

It was all over the news that literally half of the entire country, 7 of it's 14 regions suffered from heavy flooding, a lot of people were evacuated, there were some deaths... Maybe you can understand why I was a little leery about going on this trip.



So I called a lot of people. I called the hostel we were booked at, and boy...can you say communication problems? I think the person I was talking to and I were both saying it...we just didn't understand each other. All I wanted to know was if the city was under water but they thought I wanted something to do with the reservation so they kept asking me all these questions... what's your name, when are you coming, how many people are coming, what did you eat for lunch.... Finally I got a 'no, the hostel is ok'. Needless to say, I looked for another opinion. I called a travel agency, which somehow knew nothing about the flooding, even though it was all over international news... See if I ever book a trip through the Travel Cuts in Waterloo again. Travelers beware! Finally I called the Canadian Embassy in Czech, and the woman I spoke with sounded completely offended at my question about how safe visiting would be this weekend. Ok, so the verdict is....I'm going to Prague!!

I was pretty excited about this trip, I've heard from a lot of people that it's 'the most beautiful city in Europe.' We also went to 'The Biggest Club in Eastern Europe', but I think they should rename it 'The Biggest Daycare in Eastern Europe Where We Give Your Children Booze.' Seriously, I felt like the chaperone at a highschool dance. I have never, ever had to use the line "I'm sorry, I just don't date people who can't grow facial hair yet" before. This club was all over travelers websites as this amazing club.. it's 5 levels high, a different genre of music on each floor...sounds like fun right? So we go in...and 45 seconds later I'm thinking I must be in the wrong place. I hear loud music, I see the bar....but what are all these munchkins doing here? The average age was about 16 years old. We asked some people. I was so tempted to ask them if their parents had any idea where they were, dressed like that and drinking alcohol... Dear gawd I must be getting old...

So we stayed for a bit and had fun, as always. I took an online test the other day to determine what my 'theme song' is. Turns out it's Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves. Not much to those lyrics, but the song makes my happy, so when they played it on the oldies floor at this silly club I toottalllyy got my groove on.

Next stop, a house club. Old opinion: house suuucckks. So boring to dance to... there are no lyrics, I can't be a diva while I dance. New Opinion: Okkkk so maybe soomme of it is oookkk.

Prague is actually a pretty dangerous place. The pick-pockets are incredibly tallented, there is alot of prostitution and violent crime is on the rise. So knowing this, myself and two of the others decided to take a cab back to the hostel to avoid walking through the streets late at night. If you ever go to Prague, don't take a taxi. I found out a little too late that Prague taxi drivers are famous for their corruption. We showed the guy on the map where we wanted to go...and ya...he totally didnt take us there. He took us somewhere else, took our money, and left us there before we realized we were in the wrong spot. So then we had to walk home anyways, because we had no more money. I was fuurrioouuss!!!! All it would take is one undercover cop to hand out a big fine and the drivers would stop doing that, I have no idea why they're allowed to get away with it, especially since tourism is I believe Prague's main industry, and corrupt cabbies doesn't exactly encourage it. Jimmy walked home later that night and got his wallet stolen by a prostitute and her pimp. And later at a coffee shop they tried to put a bunch of extra stuff on our bill, and then got mad and kicked us out when we tried to explain we never had any of it. This weekend pretty much everybody got cheated or ripped off in one way or another...

BUT! Don't get me wrong, it's a nice place to visit. It's one place that I won't say 'OMG YOU HAVE TO VISIT IT!"... it was nice, a very picturesque place but it doesn't make my list of 'must-sees'.

Prague somehow managed to survive both world wars so alot of the buildings are very very old. Some of them are reaaalllyy cute, all different coulours like yellow and pink with cute molding and designs. It sort of did look like it was something straight out of a fairy tale.



There was also an adorable Easter Market in the Old Town Square this weekend with all kinds of booths displaying all kinds of goodies. Czech is famous for their wooden toys, glass and crystal, and also their hand painted Easter eggs, so all that stuff was fun to look at. Oh, and it's where the original pilsner beer comes from. Everybody else uses that word now, but I don't think it's brewed the same way as it is in the Czech Republic. That's what I'm drinking over dinner with Jarrett, Jimmy and Petar at the top of my post.

Hmm I'm not sure what else to say. This isn't really one of my 'educational posts' I guess... I did learn some about the Czech history on a walking tour we took, but can't think of anything incredibly interesting to share. Oh, actually once upon a time when Czech was under communist rule (and hated it) some students protested by setting themselves on fire. They burned themselves. And obviously died, although weeks later. You would have to believe in your cause sooo much to do something like that.... And I still don't get it.. I mean, ok so you make a hell of a statement, but then what good are you to the world, you can't continue to make a difference... I guess maybe that one act made a lasting difference... It still sounds insane to me, but maybe it's just because try as I might I can't seem to slip into their shoes...

As always, you can check out the rest of my pictures here. There are some nice ones of the city, gives you an idea of what the place is like.

Paris - my most favorite city so far

Paris...why do I love it so much? Oh gawd I don't know... there's just something about it. Of all the places I've been... Vienna, Bratislava, Berlin, London, Krakow... I fell in love with Paris the first time I went 4 years ago, and fell in love all over again this weekend.

It's such a nice city, there's sooo much to do, but it's not like it's just a tourist type place. It just feels like somewhere you could live... You know when you go somewhere and you feel like...ok i'm home now, this feels like home. That's what the city is like. The scenery is beautiful, the buildings are beautiful, the language is beautiful, the food is FANTASTIC (i ate escargo this weekend for the first time...soooo good! The bread, the cheese, the pastry...oh my..), the people are helpful... there's a river running through the centre with a dozen different bridges spanning it, gorgeous gardens everywhere where I could see myself spending entire afternoons reading or writing or just people watching. It's so cultured, but at the same time so down to earth. I just loved the atmosphere, I loved everything. I'll go back again and again, whenever I can for the rest of my life. I actually seriously want to live there someday.. I'd have to learn french first more fluently, and i'm not too sure exactly what i'd do... I really want to take my mom there too, I know she'd love it.

It was a fun trip though, very relaxing, but i hardly got annyy sleep. I shared a room with jimmy and petar and jimmy snores soooo loud!! I had to wake him up like at least 4 times each night. Although apparently the 2nd night i was snoring too... he'd go to wake me up and I'd stop. Then he'd be just about to go back to sleep again and i'd start... We took turns waking each other up I guess.

The city by night is my absolute favorite. It really is romantic and magical... It doesn't matter that I wasn't there with a lover, that I was always either by myself or with a group of 7 other people....no, I'm not just being a corny cheeseball, the city actually has a lil somthing extra special to it. I went to see everything i'd seen in the day again at night over the trip, it's amazing. We were actually fortunate enough to be outside the Eiffel Tower exactly at midnight.. It's all lit up, but then all of a sudden it started sparking like mad, it reminded me of tinkerbell and her fairy dust... We took some pictures with us in the background, and it looks so fake! It looks like we photoshopped ourselves into a postcard... reeediculously amazing. I think I might overuse the word 'amazing'. Mission for anybody willing to accept it: Provide me with a list of alternative words for amazing.

The weather was a little schizophrenic, as you'll be able to tell from my pics. Some of them look like they were taken on 2 totally different days, but in reality they were probably within 5 minutes or so of each other. It rained a little, it was really sunny, it was windy and cold, it was really hot... I took my coat off and 30 seconds later I was freezing...put it back on again and, well you get the idea. The worst thing about that is you can't tell you're burning until the sun goes down and you start to feel your face try to spontaneously combust. Mine came really close... I came back to Stuttgart and some guy was all "oh look, fresh lobster imported straight from Paris". I exagerate.

Let me take a minute and rave about the food. The first thing I did when I arrived in Paris was to look for a patisserie. This, is a pastry shop. I've gotta hand it to the French on their pastries....absolutely to DIE for! Ohh we had a fantastic dinner the one night in a restaurant with an chandelier. As I said, even casual dining is classy in Paris. One appetizer, one entree, a glass of wine and a dessert for 17 euros, not bad. It was all so fancy and delish...

Ok, so what did I do in Paris, besides eat? First stop was the Sacre Coeur, a big beautiful church on a hill overlooking the city. It's as big a part of the Paris skyline as the Eiffel Tower, and we were staying at the Perfect Hostel right at the bottom of the hill. There's a really chill little square in behind it too, a ton of artists display their stuff and will paint or draw your portrait if you want. Apparently that's where some famous people like da Vinci used to hang out before they were famous. There are a ton of little cafes and shops...it was nice.

If you ever go to Paris though, be CAREFUL! If you look even a little bit like a tourist, you're as good as displaying a gigantic flashing neon sign that says 'RIP ME OFF, I'M EASY'. You can bargain with anybody though, they'll take what you give them but you've gotta be tough. Not really my specialty, but I'm learning.

Is there a story behind this warning? You bet.

Cora and I were walking alone up to the Sacre Coeur when we were approached by two men, who I believe were from Jamaica... The one guy swore he was born in France, but you don't have an accent like that if you're born in France... I soon learned he was an incredible liar. First thing the one guy said to us as he approached was 'i'm not a bad boy, don't worry..'. *cough* bolony! So they approached us with some colourful string tied at one end into a little loop and asked for my finger. He slipped the loop over it and started making a bracelet. I'm thinking uh oh... Ok so I ask him how much are the bracelets. "It's no problem for you" he says. Does that sound like it means free to you? My ears aren't very good, but I heard free.... Ok, so he finishes mine and ties it around my wrist, and his buddy is doing the same thing to Cora beside me. Then all of a sudden there are about 7 of them surrounding us, and their telling us normally people pay 20 or 30 euros for these, but for us it's half price, only 10 euros each. Okkkk I'm sorry but I'm not going to pay 10 euros for a bit of string and I told him so... I told him I'd give him 5 euros for both of the bracelets, and basically that's what we did, but they wanted more and they were sooo agressive... it got pretty scary pretty fast so we just jetted out of there. The swore at us and called us Americans lol. I'll take it... On the way back down from the church we were with the rest of the group, but these guys are NUTS. One of them tried to put the loop over my finger but I made a fist, so he grabbed my arm and was trying to convince me to open my finger, but he wouldn't let go and I was pulling... it was scary. Half a second more and he would have been the recipient of a swift kick in a strategic place but he let go... Not the best first experience in Paris... I don't know where the police were cause these guys were scarrryy and they were everywhere!

We all visited the Eiffel Tower a few times, strolled along La Siene (that river I mentioned),
jumped triumphantly outside the Arc De Triomphe, strolled down the most famous street leading away from it, des Champs Elysée, which has a lot of high class shopping, walked down the Rue de Rivoli, chilled in the Touleries Gardens...so much!

I went to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa. The Louvre is seriously e-freakin-normous. You could spend an entire week in there and you'd still need more time to appreciate everything fully. I may have spent more time looking at the ceilings in there than the art, they were exquisite works of art in themselves.

We also went to see Les Invalides and Napoleans Tomb. He's buried in 6 different tombs inside. Well at least most of him is. Somebody chopped off his penis and made off with it. I kid you not! And you know what, I've seen that too. It's buried at Westminster Abbey in London, England. How about that...

This weekend I also found the Holy Grail. Ok so not really...but pretending I did is more fun. I saw all kinds of things from that Oh So Famous novel The Da Vinci code. Yesss I knoooww it's fiction. Indulge me. I saw the upright and inverted pyramids (the blade and chalice...anybody?!?!) where the holy grail is hidden, and I went to St. Sulpice and saw the rose line (where Silas goes after killing the 4 people where he thinks the keystone is...this is exciting stuff people!!). There's actually a little disclaimer there by the church saying that the book is full of balony. Apparently they didn't want to play along... Poor sports.

OH! And the WEIRDEST thing about Paris... everywhere you go the line for the guys bathroom is HUGE and there isn't one at all for the girls! It was CRAZY and i liked it! Nice change... But i reaalllyy don't understand... it was like...something out of the twilight zone.

Getting back home...now that was an adventure. I thought saying 'home' before I came to Germany was confusing... school was 'home', and Arnstein was 'home home'....what a mess. The city went on strike tuesday, which was the day i came back and it screwed up evverrything! The public transit wasn't running (needed to take it to get to the airport), the shuttle service was all booked, so one of the guys working at the hostel drove us for 40 euros. Theenn our flight was delayed because of the strike, when we got to Stuttgart the air was congested so we had to go into a holding pattern, and when we finally DID land the minibuses that were supposed to take us back to the terminal were missing....yikes. Sooo i was late for work, late for a meeting i'd organized....yeehaw.

All in all, it was AMAZING! I love that city. Go there, if you ever have the opportunity. Or just go ahead and make the opportunity. Hmm I'm thinking I might be making the same recommendation for every single city I visit... but SERIOUSLY, do PARIS.

What's next? I HOPE i'm going to Prague this weekend. There's crazy flooding all over the Czech Republic right now though, lots of evacuations, a couple of deaths... Although no flooding yet in Prague... I dunno. I'm worried i'll end up stranded there due to a plane not being able to leave, or that I'll spend the weekend sitting on the rooftop of an inn... I'll figure it out.. The others are all 'lets just go anyways'.... crazycrazycrazy!!

Blogspot is being stupid and not letting me upload any more pictures. You're stupid blogspot. The rest of my paris pictures are here, check em out, they're good ones!