Pot & Prostitutes in Amsterdam

When you think of Amsterdam, you probably think of a bunch of Calvin College look-a-likes high as kites trying to take people out on their bikes riding through little streets with weed shops and businesses with scantily-clad women in the windows. And this is the point where I'm supposed to be like, oh no, there's so much more to Amsterdam than that. Except for not really; that's pretty much it.

Okay, I guess there are these dirty canals...kind of a rip-off of Venice if you ask me.

We had a long train ride from Berlin and spent the first night walking around the city (trying to find a hostel...I'm booking ahead from now on) and the Red Light District. I thought all of those prostitutes in the windows was some old wives' tale, or something that happened a long time ago, but turns out these half-naked women are still in the windows! As families walk by! It's nuts. According to our tour guide the oldest prostitute is 82 and has a 2 week waiting list....messed up.

We went on that free walking tour the next day (turns out there are all these free walking tours in all the major cities of Europe run by the same company). Our tour guide tried to convince us the whole time that there's more to Amsterdam than hash and prostitues...but I'm not convinced really. Although we did go to the Anne Frank house after the tour, which I kind of liked. You couldn't even take a picture with her diary though! You can never take a picture with the cool stuff. Almost bought the book after in the tourist trap bookshop, but they were charging an arm and a leg. Speaking of tourist traps, Amsterdam is full of them! Dungeon and torture museums, a "palace" where celebrity look-a-likes are in the windows and you can pay a crapton of money to go in there and get your picture with them. No thanks. Like we're going to fall for those traps.

Yesterday we rented bikes and trolled around in those literally all day. Eeeeveryone has bikes here; there are more than cars. I've almost gotten taken out several times now. We biked pretty far around the surrounding area. It's actually a really nice city, but a city known for reefer (how many synonyms can I come up with for marijuana...) and prostitution is kind of a lot for me to handle. Besides, I always had to be worried that the brownie I was ordering at the cafe was actually going to be a "special" brownie. Ok, not really...you can usually tell by the people in the shops if they sell special brownies at the place or not. And, let's be real, when's the last time I've even ordered a brownie at a cafe? But still.