Amsterdam Delights...

Today we transit the Kiel Canal in Germany. We’re taking this route not only for a new and interesting way to get across the Baltic, but also so we don’t have to go all the way around Denmark to get to the Eastern Region in the Baltic Sea. We dropped a small group of people off in Hamburg, Germany today so they can enjoy the countryside. It was a spontaneous venture promoted by our tour department. Unfortunately, that would not include any crew, but maybe one person overseeing the events of that tour. Yesterday was fascinating. We were docked in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Wow!!! I’ve never seen a country so free. It seems as though whatever you can imagine is legal there. Prostitutes are even protected and kept safe by the government. Disabled people (in wheelchairs) who want to go have sex with them are covered by the government health insurance to do so. The day didn’t start off too exciting weather wise. I guess in the north Europe has been experiencing some damp weather as we saw in France the last couple days and the temperatures have been low. The morning was dreary and cold. I was hopeful though since in most of the ports the morning wetness dried off and got warmer in the afternoon. We walked along the harbor to the train station where we hopped on a canal boat for a little preview of Amsterdam by waterway. Canals run all through Amsterdam creating somewhere in the midst of 50 islands in the city. It started off sketchy although we were in a patch of blue sky and sunshine. In the distance were the ominous dark thunderclouds and you could occasionally see a lightening flash. No worries though since the boat had a retractable top. The whole experience of traveling down the canal was fascinating. Buildings side by side in true Dutch style. They pay tax by the width of the house (just like in New York, which used to be Nieuw Amsterdam) so there are literally homes that are one window wide and as many floors as they need to go up. Also since some of the ground the houses were built on was unstable at the time there are quite a few homes that lean into each other. We did end up hitting that patch of darkness and lo and behold a thunderclap sounded. I started to head to the covered part of the boat, but the driver was two steps ahead of me and started to close the top. Sure enough at least two minutes after he closed it, downpour. It was fine. We were underneath the protection of the glass dome. We continued our transit along the canal passing the Anne Frank House and other notable sights listening to the commentary of the prerecorded voice as well as our driver. The rain soon let up enough that he was able to open the dome a little bit. We kept on going through the canal under the many bridges that went over the waterways. It was almost like Venice here. There was one area that was very notable for its romantic charm because of the bridges all lined up one after the other. It was all so scenic. We sailed out into the harbor where it was raining again and so he closed the dome. We passed our ship along the way and headed back to our starting point. When we got out of the boat it was still sprinkling and we were all caught without an umbrella. It only went on for another 10 minutes or so before the clouds parted and the sun burned off the remaining clouds for the day. We headed into the famed red-light district just to see the other “interesting” parts of Amsterdam. I kid you not there were adult shops everywhere. Porn shops, marijuana shops, bars, and all kinds of other things just in this localized section of town. We stopped at a local dive that had cheap noodles for lunch. Some of our group went next door to the Irish Pub to have a nicer meal with the Irish beer, Guinness. Since they took a while with their meal I went and scoped out the area. We got a tip for a local herbal place and a free sample so I went to find it along with some other sights so we weren’t shuffling around with a large group of people with no destination. I came back with sights all lined up and we were off. We went through all the alleys of the red-light district and all the scenes that have been in movies about the ladies in the windows with the red lights (hence the name) were true. There were cubicles with large windows and ladies just waiting and tantalizing everyone that walked by. Even families were in this area just looking at this interesting phenom that is such a taboo in most parts of the world. Those crazy Dutch I tell ya. We left the district and headed to the shopping part of town past the Dam Plaza and the Dam Palace. In this plaza was Madame Toussads. This really was like New York in a way right down to the tourist attractions. We found the shopping street. It was packed and filled with lots of retail and trendy places. Through all of this we found the American Book Shop where we made a pit stop to see if we could gather any titles. The new Harry Potter book was coming out soon, so one of our girls made an order for it to pick up the next time we’re in Amsterdam. We found the herbal shop and what you find in there was pretty amazing. You could get anything from hash lollies and cookies to herbal remedies, shrooms, flavored marijuana and all sorts of paraphernalia to various detoxifiers and other herbal teas. Some friends snorted a bit of herbal energizer that was laced with cinnamon and some other herbs and we got our free sample of a stimulant that would increase brain activity. No worries, all herbs and nothing that was illegal in any part of the world. We left this area and started to head back to the ship after a full day in Amsterdam. I was completely exhausted as usual from getting up early and walking all day. Next time we’re here I plan to bike around the city and visit the Anne Frank House as well as the Van Gogh Museum. Amsterdam seems to be such a lively and free place and it appears that I will be disembarking here now instead of in Dublin, Ireland. That only means I have to come back to Europe in the future and do my own Celtic adventure. It also means I’ll be closer to Paris and just do the Netherlands, France, and Germany on my little back pack adventure. I can’t wait to come back to Amsterdam though. It’s just another hip city like Vancouver, Paris, Sydney, and all those other places in the world free from the social taboos and stress we have in the United States.