Amsterdam, Oh sweet Amsterdam !!!
Trip Start
Sep 21, 2006
1
2
101
Trip End
Ongoing
Amsterdam,
Netherlands
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Amsterdam is to Europe what Las Vegas is to America, a city where anything goes and all your wishes come true, provided you can afford it, of course.
I was going to spend only about three days in SinCity and here I am six days later and I'm still going out tonight. The thing is I got the worst cold ever the first day I got here. So I said to myself: you gotta stay here and rebuild your strengths before you can go anywhere else. But I forgot to factor in that Amsterdam is not exactly the best city to regain energy. Quite the opposite. So I grew weaker and weaker, yet happier and happier, every day. I got AmsterDAMNED !!!
Talking about that, I met this Happy Gringo the other night at a bar, undoubtedly the most stoned guy I had ever met
01 - Central Station
. He could hardly keep his eyes open. I was chatting with some new friends of mine from France, when he noticed my very typical Quebec Accent. Here's a transcript of the 45 second discussion we had:HAPPY GRINGO: - Hey buddy, are you from Quebec?
ANDRE: - Yeah, I see that makes two of us.
HAPPY GRINGO: - Hey man, can you feel that there's something weird about this place?
ANDRE: - Euh ?!? No. What do you mean?
HAPPY GRINGO: - Well, I think it's because the city actually sits lower than the sea level. That's not good man. Look what happened to New Orleans. And the weather is way too weird, man, I'm losing my bearings, I'm telling you right now I'm going nuts !!!
ANDRE: (at this point I don't know what to say, so I try this:) Euh, what did you do last night?
HAPPY GRINGO: - Man I woke up this morning in a boat on a canal. I did FreeBase Cocaine with a transvestite prostitute all night. That was just too crazy man. What a rush. Yeah.
ANDRE: - Euh, Of course
02 - Dam Square
. Back to your story about the city and the sea level, I think it makes a lot of sense. You should definitely get out of here in a hurry before it really gets to you !!!!! LOLTrue story, I swear.
On a more serious note, Amsterdam is to my opinion one of the most underrated cities of Europe. There is much more to it than Pot and Prostitution. There are canals all over the place with bateau-mouches and the likes. The buildings architecture is kind of nice too. A very pleasant city to visit walking. And the Van Gogh and Rembrandt museums are great to visit, besides the infamous Sex Museum and the Heineken Museum, and the Torture Musuem and so many more. Amsterdam has something to offer to everyone. The atmosphere is very laid back and it's not violent for a minute. At least from what I could tell from the outside.
It must be the Bicycle capital of the world. The cars and trams are OK, it's the bicycles you have to worry about. They will run over you in no time. Out of the trizillions bikes I saw, none of them was worth more than $10.00, according to our North American Standards that is. All pieces of junk that seemingly come from the WWII era
03 - One of the so many canals
.Funny fact about Amsterdam:
- I walked the city every which way and I didn't see any Bicycle store. Where the heck do they all come from??? Someone told me the city is bike saturated. If you need one, you give your specs to a junky and he'll get you what you need. That could explain why not a single new bike has been introduced in Amsterdam for decades.
That's about it for now. I'm heading to Prague, Czech Republic tomorrow. More to come...
Andre.
Comments
Enjoy my friend!!!
Too bad we missed you in Netherlands!
Salut Andre
Je viens de visiter ton site sur TravelPod, c'est excellent et ce sera tres interessant de te suivre a la trace de cette facon.
Ta conversation avec le happy gringo m'a bien fais rire.
Bonne continuation de voyage et a bientot.
Salut André
Je savais que tu adorerais Amsterdam, c'est effectivement l'une des villes les plus vivantes et trippantes. Continue de maintenir ton blog à jour, je vais de cette façon pouvoir te suivre et t'envier un peu, car ce n'est que le début, j'imagine que ce qui est à venir sera encore meilleur. Pour ta grippe console toi, cela fait 13 jours que je l'ai.....
Bon séjour à Prague, apparemment que c'est également une ville à voir, surtout les filles de Prague, elles sont reconnues mondialement pour leur chaleureux acceuil......
A la prochaine...
Laughing out loud!
Andre,
Your story about the *happy gringo* made me laugh out loud!
Sounds like something that would happen to me!
I'm thrilled to hear about your progress and glad you are having fun.
I'll keep you posted on the real estate end of things.
Did you go to the sex museum?
Angela
Salut André
super trippant ce site avec tes photos...Je suis sure que tu as du fun et que toute cette culture te fais trippé...Ne te gène pas pour en envoyé d'autres...On te souhaite ben du plaisir et surtout profite de tout ce qu'il y a la-bas...Bye Danielle
Nice Starting!!!!!
Salut mon vieux, ça semble pas mal du tout à cet endroit, es-tu allé à la messe aussi ???? Y doit ben avoir des églises aussi là-bas... Les photos sont vraiment belles, sauf la dernière malheureusement.....Si tu me l'envoies par e-mail j'aimerais bien.....lol Bon soigne toi bien pis prends pas trop d'herbes médicinales non plus là!!!!!
Enjoy!
SALUT ANDRE
C'est merveilleux ton voyage... on le fait avec toi. Tes histoires sont super Qu'elle belle expérience de vie tu fais! On pense a toi!
Brigitte et José
Salut André
Superbe en effet Prague. Cela nous donne le goût d'être à tes côtés et de partager ces moments avec toi, surtout avec la bière à ce prix-là. Dans un atre ordre d'idée, Un ancien confrère de travail arrive de 2 semaines de vacances en Croatie et il me jure que c'est le plus beau voyage de sa vie et c'est quelqu'un qui a beaucoup voyagé.Il est déjà allé en Australie et Nouvelle-Zélande et a préféré la côte Adriatique qu'offre entre autre la Croatie. C'est près de L'Autriche et c'est pourquoi je te transmet l'info si le coeur t'en dit, bien que je ne crois pas que ce soit sur ton itinéraire original. Ici en Beauce tout va bien.
Salut
David,Diane et Daniel