Amsterdam

We (btw, "we" refers to Nora and I, we planned, and executed, this trip together) arrived in Amsterdam at night, which was a mistake, and also very appropriate. I have mixed feelings about Amsterdam. It was the kind of place (this also includes Barcelona) where I could see how people could have a much better experience than I did. I found the place to be too shady for me to stomach.

As we walked around Amsterdam we saw many a sex shop. I've never seen so many vibrators in my entire life. And of course there were a lot of coffee shops, which is where they sell pot. We met this guy in our hostel who knows some people at WashU, and he went to a coffee shop and I'm pretty sure he got sold a fake space cake and a joint that smelled overwhelmingly like basil. So, I was a little wary of the coffee shops and did not participate in the typical Amsterdam experience.

We did, however, find the red light district. In fact, our hostel was located in a mini red light district. I didn't realize that the sex workers actually stand in windows, and they are super close to you as you pass by. Nora couldn't look at them, but I could. And they looked unhappy and bored. Occasionally we saw them texting. I also saw a couple of men walk out of the houses, and they looked really unhappy. One guy looked like he was about to cry. Before seeing it, I had imagined that legalized prostitution would take some of the sexist, oppressiveness out of it. It didn't. Of course I know that people can choose to be sex workers and that it is a personal choice of what to do with your own body, but a lot of what I saw was just depressing.

In fact, Amsterdam was the place where I experienced the most sexism and creepiness of any place we went. Well, that leads into my creepy hostel stories. Not one, or two but three creepy hostel stories.

Sketchy story number 1.

It all begins when Nora and I get back from walking around Amsterdam at night. Since I thought the Dam was a sketch place to begin with, I was already feeling weird, and then we walk in and see basically porn on the TV in the room. I didn't even know that there was a TV, and suddenly there were images of buxom blonds rubbing themselves and asking the viewer to call a sex line. So that was weird. Then we keep walking into the room and find that one of our roommates was incredibly high. He didn't even register that we had walked in, let alone change the channel. He just continued slowly eating a bag of chips.

Nora and I flipped out and so we ran downstairs to tell the management that there was a weirdo in our room, and first thing the hotel guy said was, "is he big?" We responded that he was medium sized, and so he said that we should just take him if he gives us problems. He told us to be "two strong women." He was not reassuring. So we went back and druggie boy gave Nora the remote so she turned off the porn and he went to sleep. He occasionally laughed in his sleep. Maybe he was dreaming about the look on our faces when we walked in and saw the TV.

Sketchy story number 2.

The morning we left for Berlin, we get up to pack our things and head to the train station. I should start by saying that Scottish people had taken over Amsterdam the weekend we were there. They all descended for a football game. They mostly wore kilts, and carried Scottish flags and bagpipes. At one point, I looked around and realized that 50% of the people we could see were wearing kilts. At least one of the guys in our room was Scottish. I know this because his kilt was on the ground. Well, I guess he wore his kilt the traditional way (without underwear) and instead of putting pajamas on, he just took it off and went to bed. In the morning we awake to find him completely naked. And mind you, this room has five other people staying in it--two of them female. And the covers weren't covering anything. So we had to try and pack up our stuff while dealing with a naked Scotsman in our face. It was not pleasant.

Sketchy story number three.

This is a quickie. At one point Nora needed a nap and so I decided to write in my journal in the hostel lobby. My company for the evening was a middle aged lady who looked a lot like my Grandma did when she was middle aged. She had purchased a huge spread of McDonald's and laid it all out, but she wasn't eating. Instead, she had the TV remote in her hand and was changing channels mechanically, as if she wasn't really seeing what was on screen, but just pushing buttons. And then, periodically, she would laugh, but there was nothing funny on screen. Meanwhile, some super drunk Scots were harassing the hotel management about how they thought the breakfast was shit. The hotel management responded by getting frustrated and saying "I shoot you, I shoot you" and pretending to hold a gun. And all the while, I can look out the hostel windows and see sex workers in their neon lighted windows. I felt like I had accidentally wandered into an insane asylum.

There were nice things that happened in Amsterdam as well, but unfortunately the weird experiences stick out the most. The last weird experience of note takes place in the little exhibition space at the end of the Anne Frank house. I believe it was called "You choose!," but it was a space where you could vote on issues of free speech. So for example, the video would show clips of media coverage of a neo-nazi protest outside a synagogue, and then ask, "should anti-Semitic groups be allowed to protest outside of synagogues" and you could press a button, indicating yes or no.

Well one of the questions concerned the way the Catholic church in Poland promotes discrimination and violence against homosexual people. So the video asked, "should the catholic church in Poland be allowed to target homosexual people?" (or something along those lines).
There was this big group of French teenagers and this one kid leans over to Nora and I and told us to "press yes, press yes, press yes" in an aggressive manner. I could only conclude that he wished to express to us how much he dislikes gay people.

I couldn't believe that this kid had just gone through the Anne Frank house and could still act that way. I also think that was the first time I had experienced someone being openly and enthusiastically anti-gay to my face, which means that I have been extremely lucky.