024 - wed 24/05/2006 - amsterdam

when we woke up it was still grey, wet and generally crappy. after breakfast at the hotel we found an internet cafe where we tried to catch up with a few things. we bought an umbrella for five euros.

making use of our umbrella, we joined the queue at the anne frank house. the queue moved pretty quickly and we were inside within fifteen minutes, although we'd still managed to get pretty soaked in that short time, despite the umbrella. i wasn't particularly familiar with the anne frank story but found the whole place very interesting. after that we escaped the still insistent rain by heading down into a nearby cafe for poffertjes and coffee.

the rain cleared a little so we wandered west, through a part of town known as the jordaan. basically its a slightly swanky area of town with lots of clothing stores, gift shops and things like that. canals too. it was definitely the pretty side of town - our hotel was situated right in the middle of town, in the middle of tourist shops, coffeehouses, dodgy kebab stores and fast food chains. we were beginning to get the feeling that amsterdam is definitely two towns in one - the laidback, pretty side with its canals and cafes, compared to the grungy, and very touristy central bits with the red light district, stoner havens and tacky shops.

we did a canal cruise but it was a bit lame. i think we were hoping to have an open roof, but the canal was kind of enclosed in glass, which isn't as cool as it sounds especially when its raining and your view just becomes a foggy, distorted watery mess. some of the pre-recorded commentary was interesting but on the whole it was a little, yeah, lame. but we couldn't find any other way to get on the water.

after that we decided to find some famous dutch fries, the local fast food, only to find that basically it entailed a big mess of pretty ordinary chips (as in fish and chips) completely smothered in smelly mayonnaise. we took it back to our hotel room, away from the rain and cold.

we knew we had to see the red light district before we left, but decided that the best way to approach it would probably be to get really drunk first. i think we knew that with the help of a few drinks we'd be able to giggle our way through it - we might not have lasted long sober. so we made our way through a few bars in the southern part of town, going on recommendations from 'the book'. we with to a pub with brown walls, a very old-fashioned pub, the kind of pub you'd expect to be filled with local blokes who'd knocked off work for the day (it was). we had a great little random conversation with a local guy who was waiting for his mate to arrive.

boozed up we headed for the naked ladies. we saw a lot of boobies, a few vacant stares. guys tried to get us to come into their strip clubs. i actually got a little bit miffed that none of the girls beckoned for me, or tried to lure me into their little rooms, but i guess the fact that i was arm in arm with suz hurt my chances a little. that and the fact that suz growled like a rabid dog at all of them, and occasionally gave them the finger, and often yelled out things like "you lookin at my man, bitch?" she didn't really do any of those things.

click here to see photos from this day