Water, fire, and disease: Amsterdam, Netherlands.

For the past few days, I have been viewing a world of extraordinary events.
Christian theme hostels, streets full of bikini clad women in windows (next to said hostels), drive-by shootings, drug dealers, drug do-ers, public urinations (lots of that), crazy “make your own street law” cell-phone talking bicyclists, Disneyland style beer tours, flocks upon flocks of swans, and of course, x-mas supermarkets/convenient stores selling items you wouldn’t normally expect.

When I left Saskatoon, I took a gigantic step out of my comfort zone. Little did I understand how small a step that was compared to coming here, to Amsterdam.
When I first arrived, I wasn’t even sure it was the right place. The train station at Nuremburg was bigger than the one here, by a wide margin. I later discovered that this was simply a single wing of a much larger, more elaborate labyrinth, and was literally pushed from the station by a wave of people. My hostel is nice, and has a lot of “home” character. I knew going in (when I made my reservations online) that this was a Christian youth hostel. I had a little laugh with myself when I got to my room and saw “JESUS IS LORD” in the hallway, in red, one-million type font scale. The joke is one of the “comments” I read on the website earlier:
“I stayed there for a week and didn’t know I was in a Christian hostel till the last day.” That person needs to lay off the special brownies I think, but great hostel nonetheless.

I arrived at around 17:00 and a bright sky there was not (I’m more north now than ever). As I’ve mentioned before, taking in tours early is an advantage, because they give you a bearing on the city, making it easy to wander around later. At 17:45 there was going to be a red-light tour, so I decided to sign up.
“The Rock, has become a tourist attraction?” – Sean Connery, in “The Rock.”
“The red-light district has become a tourist attraction?” – Me, in “Spaceballs II, the search for more money.”

It takes about…. Hmmm, 11 seconds to get from the front door of my hostel, to the red-light district. For those of you (like myself 4 days ago) who have no idea what the red-light district is like, I will tell you.
18ish city blocks of “coffee shops”, restaurants, XXX stores, and girls. You walk through some alleyway; both sides are made up of full-length window doors. Inside the window doors you will find a variety of near naked women (glowing red from florescent lights) trying any number of techniques to grab your attention (standing still while doing nothing at all works too it seems).
In Amsterdam, this is 100% legal, and the girls have their own union, personal security team, and also pay income tax on their earnings. Pimping is illegal, and I’m told every girl there, is so by choice. That’s what they keep telling me anyway, but I find the term “choice” to be a very loose term. Regardless of how “free” and “liberal” they are here, I still can’t help but feeling bad for these girls. It’s like walking through a butcher shop, picking out the right/best cut of meat.
-But-
Lets me be honest here for a second.
1) I’m a man
2) I have a pulse
Much like the thunderous mountains, crystal clear lakes and rivers, cleansing trees, majestic sunsets, sunrises, aurora borealis, and wild animals living in equilibrium with nature. A man has to admire that which is deserving of his attention, even if slightly beyond the norm.
They give me a taunt; I give them a smile. Fair trade.

The next morning, after going on a “normal” free tour of the downtown, I went with a Canadian (Brent, from Edmonton) to the new and improved Heineken beer museum, on the south side of town. This tour was fantastic. It was like Disneyland without the line-ups. There were fun games, rides, drinks, interactive events, mascots, and even a little bit of education.
When we completed the tour, the two of us decided to get some “walk to wok” Chinese food for lunch. We were walking beside one of Amsterdam’s many canals when I heard: “BANG! BANG! BANG!... BANG!”
At first my mind tried to rationalize what I just heard with something innocent (like firecrackers), but once I saw a guy running down the street, one jump into the canal, two of his friends running down an alley, and a silver American sedan peeling out of there like a bat-outa-hell; it was painfully obvious this was no firecracker incident. The man who jumped into the canal managed to get himself out (I have no idea how, those walls are tall and steep), yell at his friends, and burn some rubber away from the scene. This was all in broad daylight, and nobody seemed to be hit. I suspect it was a drug deal gone bad, and the “gangsta” in the silver sedan shot at the other men as a warning, never to screw up again. Either that or bad aim; who knows?
It’s worth noting that even though I managed to not get shot myself, I was certainly within the danger zone (we were about 50 meters away). Sad how reckless people can be.

Sometimes I wonder how people get elected.
Problem: People pee too much in public.
Their solution: Lets put up small metal sheets in alleyways, to deflect the pee from the wall.
Problem: People just pee beside the metal pee barriers.
Solution: Lets make underground public washrooms where drug addicts can shoot up!
Problem: Drug addicts are using the washrooms.
Solution: Close them all down; we can live with the pee.
/facepalm

The Hollanders are lucky it rains so much; otherwise it would smell something crazy bad in the city.

Now for my solution:
Remove this PITA 0.25-0.50EU charge for using washrooms in the city. You HAVE to pay to pee here, and if you don’t have exactly the right coin, or you would simply rather have money in your pocket than not… You will pee in an alley. Not rocket science here people.

Well, I’ve got one more full day here in Amsterdam, so we’ll see how that turns out, and then it’s Rotterdam, and then a smaller Netherlands city, which I have yet to decide on. Then it’s off to Copenhagen.
Oh, and as far as the post title goes. The coat of arms for Amsterdam is a shield with three “X”s. Each “X” represents the three main enemies of the state, which are: water, fire, and disease. The more you know!

-Kyle- alt-f4’ing out for tonight. (Don’t push alt f4 o.k?)