Amsterdam

1

September 22, 2015 by moloneycian

Ah the Dam. I’ve been to this interesting city a handful of times now, and finally feel competent enough to give you a half-decent rendition.

Heed my warning first! If you have difficulty climbing up steep ladders, then you might want to reconsider, because every single staircase in this city feels like climbing the last mile of everest.. expect to get your hands dirty. Also maybe take out insurance because if you get drunk and take a tumble on these bad boys, you are going to be in BIG trouble!

My most recent trip only this month is with a couple of my close Irish friends [John and Rachel], and with a couple of new Indian friends [Kat, Reva, and Arshia].

Rach, John, Reva, Kat, Arshia, and myself

The place we stayed in is a ‘hotel’ called the Old Quarter. Now this place is definitely not a hotel for starters, don’t be fooled by it’s half-decent website. You can get a pretty cheap ‘bucket’ of beers for next to nothing though. Bit of an odd vibe, with at least 90% of the people staying here seeming to be pissed English dudes. Staff were not the friendliest per se, they had kind of ignored us as we were standing at the desk until we explicitly asked to check in. It took literally everything in our collective arsenal before we managed to get the person on the desk to crack a smile. They also have a massive cat that is quite tolerant of people cooing and stroking it (hint as to how we managed to get the woman to smile). Oh, and Reva nearly got robbed by a guy who ambled in while we were in reception, he got his hand into her bag before she realised and he left.

The only other place I can remember staying in previously have been Durty Nellys, an Irish pub with lovely staff, mediocre food for the price, and a LOT of rules. Good god my legs were aching while the manager rattled off a good 20 rules and regulations before we managed to check in. However, we managed to probably bend most and not get shouted at. I was there during the Six Nations Final (rugby) and people were dancing on the tables, throwing beers around.. general gas craic [good fun] all around!

Nellys didn’t mind us breaking the rules just a bit…

 

Regardless, both spots were pretty dam (haha, get it?) central though, and the location alone was enough to book em.

 

Things to do

So attractions! I’ve been to quite a few, so I’ll rattle off a couple of my favourites and some recommendations, and leave you to it. If you expected to hear about the Anne Frank museum, I’m afraid you’re out of luck because I haven’t been. Shame shame, I know.. but I mean the queue for this thing is simply MASSIVE.. and there is just too much beer to concentrate on. So in no particular order we have…

Beer Bike

This was great fun, and we did it in the pouring rain (it came down about 15 minutes into it). If you’ve not heard of this before, you’ve probably seen it. you know that weird large metal table you’ve seen people sitting at in traffic, drinking and shouting? This is that, the table is basically powered by the people pushing the thing with bike pedals attached to each seat. Unlike another thing called ‘pedibus’ I’ve tried in London, this was SO much easier. In London the thing was solely powered by your legs, but apparently Amsterdams Beer Bike is one of the few that actually has a motor assist. So if you want, you can simply sit back, drink, and let the engine do all of the work! Our driver was Art (hopefully spelling that correctly), the man who owned the company. He was really accommodating, popping over at an hours notice with beer and Prosecco, even though we had a relatively small group for the table. I’d fully recommend this, as you get to zip down the smaller canal side streets and hear a bit of history on the way too.

On the beer bike!

Red Light District

The one thing that brings tourists here in their droves, other than the legal drugs, are those Red [and Blue] lights that you can have a gander at. Red lights are girls, and blue lights are transgender. You know the deal; if you want sex, ask one of these people and they will oblige you. While I haven’t availed of this service myself, you’ve got to at least have a walk around. Maybe not if you are a ‘yes’ man, or succumb easily to peer pressure, because all over the streets you’ll see women teasing people into their windows, and large groups attempting to push their friends in. Just be careful in narrow corridors, you may just be grabbed.

Sex Museum

Definite recommendation here, it only takes an hour to pop in and see a bunch of things about the history of porn, early images and ‘tools’ and whatnot, and learn about why Amsterdam is so bloody sexy today.

Bananen Bar

The banana bar is a.. how do you say.. interactive.. strip show. It’s draw to us was it’s ticket, it was €60 which included an hour worth of free booze. How can you say no to that! I was in there with a group of friends from Ireland and we were almost unable to drink our drinks in both the hilarity and disgust of watching one of our friends getting forced to eat a banana out of a ‘vertical bacon sandwich’. If you don’t want to get involved in this, just stick to the bar and get ready to cringe and laugh.

Canal Ride

What better way to beat that hangover than a nice cruise around the labyrinth of canals around the city? I’ve seen the prices and deals for these things vary from €6 to €20, and they are all over the place so there is plenty to choose from. We took the cheap €6 option, and were happy. The odd thing is the informational sound bytes that are played for the passengers. You’ll be passing some building and it’ll say “notice the statue on the building on the left. The statue is of St. George killing a dragon”, and that will be it. No information on why it’s there (I’m sure St. George is England’s patron saint, right?), who he was, or what his story is. You kinda get the same information you would get if you were to take the tour with an excited five year old just pointing and saying “Look! There is a funny man up there!!”. Zero context, but great if you are in a giddy mood, like we were.

I think the person in the far back just wanted to fit in..

Casa Rosso Night Show

This was described as a ‘mild’ sex show, where there was a big distance between the viewers and the stage. It’s €50 for a two-drink ticket, and is basically a small curtained stage where some folks do the business, and then the curtain closes. Rinse and repeat. The actors [is actors the right word?] seemed quite less than enthusiastic however. We did see one poor soul who volunteered when asked. He was taken on stage and the woman began to pull his shirt off, at which point it bailed and literally ran off the stage, to the jeering of the rest of his party. Not really worth the cash, you’re not going to get buckets of entertainment out of this thing. Kat actually fell asleep during the thing, and I think she was one of the most excited to go, so that’ll tell you how exciting it was.

Vondelpark

We heard that this park was renowned for people going to take shrooms and basically, have a laugh. So we decided to check it out, only to find a pretty nice regular looking park. After playing about an hour of ‘Heads Up’, we were met by some guy who was definitely off his head on something, with what is probably his house key tied around his neck. He took a liking to Kat, after she kindly offered him our last beer, and then proceeded to show us his excellent Karate Moves by crunching the can under his foot. We showed us how good he was at doing the splits before we vacated. We later saw him half naked with a new beer and doing the splits do another group of random people. Making me feel just a bit used.

Entrance of the brewery

Heineken Experience

Yes it’s a bit of a cliché, but this place is pretty cool. The price of a ticket even get’s you a couple of [tiny] beers up in the bar where you learn how the whole process works, as well as some of the history behind the beer. You’ll also learn that every time you complained because you were served a large head on beer pretty much means that you were wrong, as that’s how it’s really supposed to be.

Pictures of Amsterdam!