I stayed in a Christian hostel right off the Red Light Canal. In fact, it shared the same alley as a Thai massage parlor down the corner that itself was on the Red Light Canal. The irony of it all was too much for me, and I had to compose myself after a good 5 minutes of laughing. The staff of the hostel were completely oblivious, which I found fitting. When asking them were van Gogh’s museum was or a public library or a supermarket, they simply had no idea. It was if they never left the sanctuary of their hostel, and since they were Christians in Amsterdam, I don’t say I blame them. The room I stayed in was an 18-man shared room which stank in the morning, especially if there was a full house, which there usually was. Of course it was not mixed, men and women were strictly segregated at the Christian hostel. The breakfast was equally unimpressive: a choice between a bowl of bran and a banana or a 2 slices of bread and a slice of ham, served with either a cup of milk or orange drink. The price was <20 Euro/night, but was probably the shabbiest place I’d ever stayed in. It did not help matters when, a day before I was to leave, I came back to the room to find that all the luggage had been tossed. By this I mean I found everyone’s bags open and all their things strewn out over the floor, including Mike’s and my own. The shock was enough to bring me screeching out of my mid-afternoon daze. I felt the sudden urge to run down to the desk and report it before someone else from the room walked in, saw the same mess as well as me being the only person in the room, and started connecting dots. The front desk was of little help, sending up a maintenance guy to see that it had indeed happened, and to check the other rooms to make sure they had not been tossed as well. They phoned the hostel manager, who came in and talked to me. I told him I had found everything the way it was, but luckily I had nothing of value in my backpack for the thief to steal. They said they would look at the security footage to determine who was the last person to exit the room, but there was little else they could do if he was no longer staying there. This was, of course, profoundly comforting and put my mind to ease for the remainder of my stay… I slept with my bags till I left.
During my stay I frequented the public library near the train station because my hostel did not have any Internet, lest they give their drones a window to the outside world. The architecture of the structure made it look like a cube inside of a picture frame. Here’s a pic:
I tried to get into Anne Frank’s house, but the line was too long and I knew I would need a heavy toke sesh to correct the doom and gloom it would put into me, so I took a pic of a plaque outside of it, just to show that I did indeed make a concerted effort:
Two cultural points of interest that I would recommend anyone visiting Amsterdam, besides the Red Light District (think that’s funny me mentioning that as “cultural” right? Well I’ll have you know that tour groups do make a point of walking along Red Light Canal, at night, just so the tourists can see the utter ridiculousness of the human condition that it represents), would be van Gogh’s museum and Boom Chicago. Oh, and I found a parking garage for bicycles, because Holland appears to have a bigger bike culture than France. Go figure.
Van Gogh’s museum is worth the price of admission, but it will not take you long to see all this glum chum had to produce. The first floor is dedicated to his influences, the third floor is dedicated to his influenced, and the second floor is all him. I’d suggest skipping the bread and going straight for the meat. What was even greater than seeing all of van Gogh’s works of art was seeing all of van Gogh’s works of art on hallucinogenic, psychotropic mushrooms. Impressionism had long been one of my favorite art forms for this very reason, and it gave me great pleasure to see van Gogh’s works dance before my extremely dilated eyes. My favorite one was his picture titled “Sunflower”, and the one which I found made a funny point was his “Smoking Skeleton”. I wonder if the Dutch will find that extremely fitting since, as of 1 July, 2008, they can no longer smoke tobacco indoors. I wonder whether van Gogh meant to make the point that cigarettes kill people, or whether he was just trying to be chique, but I thought it was brilliant. Van Gogh was a deeply troubled man who lived a deeply troubled life, complete with self-mutilation and a fatal self-inflicted gunshot wound. Thanks for the artwork anyway, Vinny.
Boom Chicago is a live sketch comedy troop almost exactly similar to Second City of Chicago, or for those less familiar, a smaller, local version of Saturday Night Live. What made the venue great was it was a dinner theater format, and with your admission you were given a free beer! Though this was not the intoxicant I was on to make this evening particularly funny, it was nonetheless appreciated. On the night I went, they were doing a “Best of” night including the best sketches from the past 15 years, the real timeless ones that would not scream 1992. Not only did they do these but they also included many audience participation bits, which meant the audience would help set a scene or give a catchphrase. I even got one in, for when they asked the audience to come up with an absurd problem facing the world, I yelled out “Global warming!” It was a great response too because you could literally hear the needle scratch off the record in the theater and everyone take a long, cold stare my direction. Luckily the actors saved me from a verbal berating by making a joke at my expense: “Looks like we got an environmental policy writer from the Bush White House in the audience, ladies and gentlemen! Just kidding, we know there are no environmental policy writers in the Bush White House!” (The DJ in the booth gave off two drum beats and a cymbal crash. I was bawling with laughter!) They gave me a chance to save some face and come up with another absurd problem facing the world so I went with the inverse and said “Global cooling.” The rest of the evening went very well, and by the end of it I felt like I had done 1000 crunches, my sides were hurting very badly.
My overall impression of Amsterdam was a very modern city exhibiting all the modern amenities that come with such a distinction. Public transport was cheap and ran on time, shops included the latest in Western fashions and technology. There were canals … everywhere. Above all the people were friendly and spoke English fairly fluently. Their kindness was a welcome change from the disdain felt in France and even Italy and Spain to a lesser extent. Dutch victories in the European Cup made the nightlife in Amsterdam that much wilder and jubilant. While parts of Amsterdam can appear seedy, especially at night, the city itself is “mostly harmless”.
No comments:
Post a Comment