Oh, Amsterdam...

You are full of smoke and prostitutes. Our hostel is pretty much in the heart of the red light district, which is super convenient. You know me, all about smoking and hookers! I did have to give the Amsterdam experience a try, so that's how we commemorated our first night here. Last night we found a coffeeshop that was listed in our lonely planet book. In my opinion, the lights were a bit too bright and the music was super intense for the "coffee" I was about to try. But anyways, it was an interesting experience that I don't think I ever have to try again.

Today, we went on the free walking tour, given by the same company as in Dublin and Paris. It started off kind of slow because or tour guide rambled at light speed in an almost nervous sketched out way, and our tour group was pretty quiet.

Our tour guide, Bernie.

But by the end of the tour, everyone was laughing and our guide was a little better about delivering his stories. We saw an old church that supposedly the red light district grew around because of the pervy clergy men back in the day. We also saw the most famous coffeeshop of them all- it was in a scene of one of the Oceans, and has a stoned, fat cat that hangs around.

The famous coffeeshop

A lot of the house fronts here lean forward and have pullies on the tops to ease moving into the attic. The forward lean was to prevent the packages and things from swinging into the windows, but then someone smarter came along and suggested simply extending the pulley arms instead of the crazy architecture.

You can kind of tell how the houses lean forward...

I've seen a good number of prostitutes in windows. In 2000, prostitution was made legal, and pimping illegal. So these hookers are their own boss and rent window time from businesses. The standard is €50 for 15 minutes of heaven, or whatever. Apparently, you pick one out, go in, wash up, and if your lady friend still doesn't like the looks of you, she'll give you a plastic sheet with a hole in it. That's just sad if a hooker doesn't even approve. Our Amsterdam adventure continues tonight as we tour the red light district and do some window shoppping, ha. Be sure to look over the older posts, I've added pictures since Dutch internet is cheap, cheap.