Amsterdam

We just got back from Amsterdam. This place far surpasses Vegas as sin city. It is the wildest place I have ever been to. Weed and prostitution are legal. They have "Coffee Shops" which are really weed shops. They look like coffee shops with neon lights. They are pretty nice though. They also have these weed cakes. The prostitutions are entrepreneurs and rent out small rooms in the Red Light District and stand in glass windows and doors with lingerie and bikinis on until someone comes to purchase them for about $40 for 20 minutes. In addition to the prostitutes being on the main Red Light District strip, several of them are down these super small alleys were you cannot even stretch your arms out on each side. Thus, it is just people walking all through the alleys running into each other. This is why everyone is warned about pick pockets. Amsterdam also has live sex shows.

Everyone also rides bikes. Everyone! They have bike garages like we have for cars in the U.S. People ride with friends and significant others on the back of the bikes. Parents ride with children in wagons on the front of the bikes. And the bikers will run you over! I thought Germany was bad, but the Netherlands is off the hook! You better get out of the street! I saw this guy get run over by a biker and it was not a nice scene. The only downfall is that the food is not that good, but all of this other stuff makes up for it. There is so much diversity in regards to race and culture that it is just amazing. I bet there is someone in Amsterdam at any given time from most of the countries in the world. This is saying a lot considering there are roughly 194 independent countries in the world. We saw some of everything in Amsterdam. People are hilarious! There is so much more I could say, but I will leave the rest for your imagination or personal conversations. Taken together, we highly recommend Amsterdam.

In addition to the obvious attraction of the Red Light District, we also took a cruise boat tour through the canals. That was nice. We went to the Anne Frank Museum, which is the actual location where the Frank family stayed. We got to walk through the Annex and everything. It was really moving. We also went to the Dutch Resistance Museum, which chronicles how the Dutch resisted Nazi takeover during World War II. There were these three women in their late teens and early 20s who were just raw! They would kidnap key Nazi informants and “take out” individuals who worked for the Nazis. The ring leader, Hannie Schaft, got caught and ended being executed. Hannie Schaft is known as the "Girl with the Red Hair." There was a movie about her in the 1980s, entitled “The Girl with the Red Hair.”