Amsterdam, Netherlands

On our second day in Amsterdam, we slept in somewhat and had breakfast at our hostel. They call it breakfast but two pieces of toast and some peanut butter and jelly with coffee or tea isn´t exactly the breakfast we were looking forward to. As it is though, the Dutch are not big on eating a large breakfast to start the day. Since we´d already visited most of the museums, we checked out some of the others we hadn't seen to see which ones we wanted to see. The famous art museum is called the Rijksmuseum and its famous painting is called the Nightwatch. The cost of the museum though is €12.50 and since half the museum is under construction, thus making half the paintings unavailable for viewing, we decided that the price was not worth it. Amsterdam also is host to the original Heineken brewing factory but for a tour that includes a beer or two, they charge €15 so we decided to go to a photography museum called FOAM instead. Inside, they had a collection of photos by a Dutch photographer who spent a lot of time in the USA documenting alternative sports like skateboarding and such. We also found another exposition of scientific oddities like fetuses and deformed specimens. It was stomach turning at points. Afterwards, we returned to the Pancake Bakery to eat pancakes again and, I forgot to mention, their other poison that kept us going back, cinnamon flavored ice cream. After lunch, we napped in the park again for a couple of hours until our friends met us after going to the Anne Frank House and the Rijksmuseum. We walked around the city some more checking out the different areas and stopping in some bars along the way to have a drink and some shops to see what kinds of knick knacks they sold. We had dinner in a cheap looking Italian place near Dam Square and took some pictures of the famous buildings there that weren´t covered in scaffolding. I feel really bad for people that pay tons of money to come all the way over here to see a city and half the important stuff they want to see is covered in scaffolding. We took our friends through the red light district because they had never been to see the madness. We were a block away and decided to turn down a small alley to cut over to the main street of the district and as we were walking through it, our friend saw a friend of his from school in Texas there. It was odd, funny, and awkward all at once. We took a loop around the district and watched the stunned looks of our friend as they experienced the craziness of such a place for the first time. Girls literally stand in windows and offer their services to anyone passing by. It´s kind of more kitschy now than anything but if you dare to take a picture, they will turn their back to you, close their curtain, or, as we saw first hand, open the door and throw water and insults at you. This happened to the people in front of us who were very obvious about taking pictures of the hookers. As we walked past one place a man said, "hey guys, come watch a sex show?" It´s just not something you hear everyday anywhere other than Amsterdam. As famous as the city is for smoking and prostituion, the Dutch people are very conservative in their own lives. It´s a strange juxtaposition. We spent the rest of the evening with our friend that lives in Amsterdam having a drink before calling it a night since we were planning on a bike ride on Saturday. Enjoy the pics.

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