1 The Bulldog We got to our hotel in Amsterdam close to midnight, so we just grabbed some dinner and went to bed. Bright and early next day, we ventured to the nearby Leidseplien and entered the first coffee shop we found, a place called The Bulldog.
2 The Bulldog Therein, we legally purchased 4 rolled marijuana cigarettes of the 'Purple Haze' variety for 12 euros (and a lighter for one more).
3 The Bulldog Then, we legally smoked said legally purchased marijuana, and it was good. Quite good, actually. Better than we were expecting, so we went back to our hotel room for a nap.
4 Hotel room We stayed at the Golden Tulip Centre. Our room was small (maybe 1/2-1/3 as big as the one in London) and insanely narrow. You can see it indicated by the blue dot on this map; I don't think we even got the smallest or the narrowest room available.
5 Hotel room Here's the hallway; the room itself wasn't much wider. On the right there is the one storage space in the whole room- a tiny closet.
6 Hotel room The bathroom was also very narrow. If you stood at this sink your butt was practically in the hallway.
7 Hotel room You can see my travelling lion there perched above the desk. We got a nice flat-screen tv and though we weren't supposed to have internet access anywhere but the lobby, we could pick up a signal because we were on the second floor.
8 Hotel room The bed- note the narrow space on either side. But this is Amsterdam, and they build that way. I'd stay there again if I had the chance: www.goldentulipamsterdamcentre. com/default.aspx?Language=EN
9 Hotel room One thing I will admit having a bit of a problem with was the stairs. I fell down a flight when I was a kid, so narrow staircases freak me out a little. I definitely had the chance to work through that in Amsterdam!
10 Hotel Here it is. Only slightly infested with bicycles, and under a cloudy sky. We didn't see the sun the whole time we were there.
11 Satellite Sports Cafe Near the Bulldog was this place that advertised pancakes, so we had breakfast here one morning. There were tvs everywhere, the odd decor you see here, including the lamp made out of sports equipment. View their tasteful website here: http://www.satellitesportscafe.com
12 Satellite Sports Cafe Here's the Dutch pancake. Cherries, cherry liqueur, ice cream, and whipped cream. Extremely rich dairy products, which was really the case for all our trip. I thought it was over-priced when I saw it on the menu, but it was not. We were only able to eat half of the thing.
13 Sights around town Bikes everywhere. In the background you can see a bridge that's like a bike parking garage- there were thousands of them.
14 Erotic Musem This was reportedly much more 'classy' than the more expensive Sex Museum, so we visited this one. Here are little bronzes of nymphs and satyrs.
15 Erotic Musem I think this drawing was from the 20's.
16 Erotic Musem Look, a big wang!
17 Erotic Musem grape leaves and man parts
18 Erotic Musem another nymph and satyr
19 Erotic Musem Penis Bowl!
20 Erotic Musem There was quite a lot of detail on this little figurine, which was not even a foot tall.
21 Erotic Musem As the card says, it's from Roman times... probably another Priapus monument.
22 Erotic Musem candid shot... Eric calls this one 'Dick Head'
23 Erotic Musem Eric wanted me to hug it, and I started to, but the thing threatened to fall over. It's a bit top-heavy.
24 Erotic Musem Fiji fertility figure
25 Sights around town canal, gabled houses near Centraal Station. You too can make Dutch words by adding the double-a combination! Yaay!
26 Sights around town Oude Kirk (Old Church) in the Red Light district. Barely visible center-left (look for the neon) is a sex shop and a coffee shop. Palm trees are an indication that marijuana is available for purchase, incidentally.
27 Sights around town Here's the sex shop and the coffee shop a little more clearly across from the church. I won't say Netherlands government is without fault, but their problems seem to be related more to bureaucracy than to people trying to push their morals on others.
28 Cannabis College We visited both this place, and the Marijuana and Hemp Museum. These fellows had a very nice grow room. The orange cast is because of sodium vapor lights- like the ones you see in parking lots- which marijuana seems to thrive under.
29 Cannabis College Here is a color-corrected version. The odd thing is, this is closer to what it actually looked like in person. There's something about how the digital camera saw things that gave it that orange hue.
30 Cannabis College In addition to the garden, there was a person sitting down there who would answer all your questions about marijuana and hemp. History, chemistry, horticulture, anything.
31 Cannabis College I now know more about growing marijuana than I know about growing anything else. They had helpful flyers and seed catalogs available as well.
32 Cannabis College This room was about the size of our living room, though the backdrop makes it look bigger.
33 Cannabis College Another not-corrected photo. Getting the plants their proper color made the people look sickly, though again it wasn't like that in real life somehow.
34 Cannabis College As the sign says, we weren't allowed to touch the plants. They did encourage us to smell them though. They smelled very green!
35 Cannabis College Here was one of about a half-dozen strains they were growing. Check out their site: www.cannabiscollege.com
36 Cannabis College one last close-up
37 Cannabis College Well, okay, one more.... though this one appears to have aphids.
38 Doner Kebab This was a local eatery, not geared to tourists, so the menu was just in Dutch. But it looked yummy, and turned out to essentially be a gyro. Tasty! Note dual fry sauce container, with both ketchup and mayo.
39 Sights around town The Heineken brewery. Neither of us likes Heineken, so we just snapped a shot on our way to the museums.
40 Sights around town more canal- and something you don't see much of in Amsterdam- cars
41 Sights around town bikes, canals, and some buildings
42 Van Gogh Museum The title says it all. It was all paintings and drawings, which don't make for good photos. But there were tons, and also this was where they had the Rembrandt-Caravaggio exhibit which I loved.
43 Rijksmuseum Again, we only have pictures of the outside. It's an impressive building, designed by Pierre Cuypers in a mixture of Dutch Renaissance and Neo-Gothic. That's what my city guidebook says anyway.
44 Rijksmuseum We forgot it was a Saturday, so the lines were awful. But they gave us a price break on the Van Gogh museum and the Rembrandt-Caravaggio exhibit, so that was cool.
45 Rijksmuseum some detail on the side... they only allowed 450 (or so) people in the museum at a time, so there was a guy at the exit with a walkie-talkie who told the guy at the entrance when people left, so they could let more folks in.
46 Rijksmuseum an interesting Triton rain spout
47 Sama Sebo This was an Indonesian restaurant where we had the famous rijsttafel (rice table) which as you can see, is a ton of rice and a whole lot of small dishes of different things. Peanuts and coconut were prevalent flavors. I understand it's Indonesian the way Olive Garden is Italian, but it was the Dutch take on it so it was still new to us. Tasty, but expensive and enough food for 4 people.
48 Canal bus On our final day, we bought a day pass on the canal bus. The canal bus goes all over the town, and plays recorded messages pointing out sites and giving interesting facts. This is the dock we started from at Leidseplein.
49 Canal bus These are the same canal boats that they use for the expensive dinner cruises, so they were quite comfortable. It was tempting to doze off!
50 Canal bus You can see a post sticking out of most of the gables; those were for throwing a rope or chain on and hauling up big furniture to the top floors. You saw how narrow that staircase was in the earlier shot, right?
51 Church I don't recall which church this was- I think it was Westerkirk (West Church).
52 Anne Frank Since Eric was pictured with Hitler at Madame Tussaud's, it's only fair that he be picturede with Anne Frank too. The house where she stayed was right around the corner.
53 Westerkirk You can see the triple-X Amsterdam city seal. I thought it might've been related to the sex trade, but of course it wasn't... Wikipedia tells us "The official city motto is Valor, Resolution, and Mercy. The three X's, St Andrew's crosses, are taken to represent these even though the X's are older than the motto. A popular tradition also links the X's to the three threats to the city: Water, Fire and Pestilence."
54 Westerkirk We got off the canal bus here, at the church, which had the Homomonument in it's 'yard'.
55 Pink Point Right by the Homomonument (go ahead, type it, it's fun!) was this little place that had a lot of Dutch gay and lesbian tchotchkes, and pamphlets in Dutch about syphilis.
56 Homomonument Like the Princess Di monument, it wasn't gaudy statues or anything like that. Just a memorial of 3 pink granite triangles for gays who were killed in the Holocaust (and gays being persecuted everywhere).
57 Homomonument Disturbing note- you can see a dead pigeon at the base on the left there. I'm hoping a cat did it, but I'm afraid that's not what happened. :(
58 Homomonument This triangle is inscribed with some Dutch that translates to "Such an unlimited longing for friendship," a line from the gay poet Jacob Israël De Haan.
59 Homomonument Here, you can see that a line extends to the other triangles, making a greater triangle.
60 Homomonument There are the steps to the third triangle, which seems to float over the canal.
61 Homomonument It's just such a cool word. Homomonument!
62 Homomonument Here's the triangle over the canal, with some flowers.
63 Homomonument Looking back you can see the line connecting the triangles again- it goes right across the street. You can also see an outdoor peeing facility.
64 Homomonument Here's a close-up of the line.
65 Homomonument Eric peeing at the outdoor peeing facility. He seemed to enjoy it. As he let fly, church bells started ringing overhead. Really!
66 Gallery Amsterdam's smallest gallery (according to the sign)- we bought 2 pictures in there. The artist was manning it and creating more art.
67 Canal bus This was an interesting house boat... I later found out that it's a cat sanctuary called De Poezenboot! I assume that's Dutch for The Pussy Boat. www.poezenboot.nl/ poezen_uk/index.htm
68 Canal bus Here's what the canal bus looks like from the outside- it's the one heading up the canal.
69 Canal bus Here's the Rijksmuseum from the canal bus. The guidebook warned that it would be closed, but they had a special exhibit for Rembrandt's 400th birthday.
70 Rembrandtplein Rembrandtplein, or Rembrandt Square, was centered around this statue.
71 Rembrandtplein Below are statues depicting his most famous painting, 'The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch', more commonly known as 'The Nightwatch'.
72 Rembrandtplein Here is the best xylophone player in the world, as far as I know. He played a number of classical pieces flawlessly.
73 Bloemenmarkt This was the famous floating flower market, several permanently-moored house boats with flowers in all stages from bulb/seed to dried. They didn't want pictures taken but we got one anyway.
74 Canal bus One last shot from the dock where we waited to take the canal bus home...
75 Sights around town Here you see the trams, which were big and clean. I'd say they were easy to ride, but the Dutch street names really confused me so we got off on the wrong stop when we rode the thing.
76 Stopera Stad-opera, or city opera, built in 1986. It's half city hall, half music hall. A Dutch architech won a contest with this design, though not everyone liked it. One critic said it has "all the charm of an Ikea chair."
77 Sights around town Some of the canal boats look like they've been there for decades. It's entirely possible that they have, too.
78 Sights around town canal boats, house boats, more gabled houses...
79 McKroket This thing was on the 1 euro menu at the local McDonald's, and our curiosity got the better of us. The helful counterperson said "it's a fried burger, a Dutch thing." Well, it was fried, but it was not a burger except in shape. Inside was a paste that tasted like potatoes, onion powder and curry, with little chunks of meat. Not my favorite thing, but hey, when would I hve another chance to try it?
80 Goodbye This was a handy little plastic device for carrying joints around, and our trusty Bulldog lighter that we had to leave behind. I didn't have the heart to throw them away, so I left the lighter in the ashtray in the hotel room. Farewell, Amsterdam, and farewell Europe! Hopefully we'll be back soon!
