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.