Due to the holiday nature of this excursion, a good deal of these pictures were taken with a highly portable point & shoot camera. Not much time or inclination to walk several miles taking photos with a heavy camera around my neck. Even if there was time or inclination, I possibly would have been battered to death with same camera by significant other. Hope the photos don’t look too ‘holiday snaps’.
On arriving in Amsterdam, getting soaked and finally finding our hotel, we took a few hours to walk around the city (but only because we couldn’t check into the hotel and sleep for the day). Maybe it was a bit of a harsh introduction to such depravity for an innocent youngfella like me, but I was mentally scarred the first day after walking around the red light district and viewing the many varied windows that apparently only came out at night.
The above is a view from more or less outside our hotel on the fringes of the red light district; a sea of sex shops (complete with the hugely hygenic ‘booths’), window dressing (or undressing would probably be more appropriate), crack dealing hoore pimps and homeless people with perfect English. Never in one hour have I had hard drugs offered to me so much. Every few seconds you’d hear a little whisper in your ear, the funniest of which had to be “Hey man, cocaine ecstacy? Is good for the sex!” Eh no. I’m perfectly happy with the soft stuff, if only by that I mean getting knocked on my arse by the rotten stench of hash every time you pass a coffeeshop. Having said that though they do sell the most magnificent muffins. Odd flavour but hugely pleasing after savouring for several minutes. After some enquiries, it seems unlikely that I’ll be able to source said muffins in Ireland. How unfortunate. The whole red light district had me feeling rather uneasy for the first few days, but that’s possibly because I’m not used to the whole thing. I’m sure if I went back there (raging drunk) I’d have a simply splendid outing.
The rest of the city was a complete mirror opposite. Well, almost complete. There were tacky souvenir shops a plenty and of course we had to visit every single one of those no less than twice. There was a certain degree of shopping undertaken by both myself and Sandy as we searched for other things to do. The famous flower market was, although seemingly not in full bloom, quite a nice sight.
One thing that disturbed me greatly was the price of the beer. For the week I drank mostly Heineken, which averaged out at roughly €5.50 per half litre (in metric world). It even rose to €6.50 in one place, but we only went back there, ohh three times or so. Teasers. A pub to be reviewed if ever there was one. I feel that myself and Eoin should go on a fact finding mission to Amsterdam solely to review Teasers. Although the drink is pricey, I can’t help but feel that you’re also paying for the entertainment.
Above you can see quite a conservatively dressed Teasers girl. The rest of them, I can only presume, either do not know what the Dutch translation for ‘conservative’ is or don’t care. I certainly didn’t care! So to recap; visit Teasers, where you’ll be served by half naked women while watching more half naked women dancing suggestively atop the bar. If all that doesn’t fill you with a wonderful sense of stiffness, you can also partake in a ritual known as a ‘bodyshot’, a term which confused me greatly up to this point. I don’t think I need to explain it. I’ll just say that if you’re going to get one, have €25 at the ready and make sure you get the first one of the night. Otherwise, contracting a communicable disease is a huge possibility.
In the days that followed came an orgy of shopping, dining out and generally taking it easy. Nothing really that warrants an extra paragraph. We did venture to Rotterdam on one rainy day but I’ll cover that in the next post. Speaking of rain, it did rain on and off for the first few days which didn’t lend itself very well to photography. Thankfully in the last few days it was quite nice and we even managed to leave the hotel without raincoats and umbrellas. Perhaps spring isn’t the ideal time to visit a country below sea level?
Would I go back there? I’d wait until the weather gets nicer and perhaps then only for a couple of days. A long weekend of drinking and general sexual mayhem perhaps…
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Excellent shots and a great commentary on your trip!
I visited Amsterdam in 2004 and spent several happy hours at the Teasers Bar. I was again in Amsterdam this month (November 2006) and to my horror found out that the bar was closed, apparently from May this year. In true Dutch fashion, no one around could tell me why this had happened. The only cheery news is that it looks like a temporary closure - all the furniture and fixtures were intact. Maybe on my next visit (hopefully soon), I’ll again be able to spend some more happy hours there!
Hi!!
I totally agree with Donncha - excellent work.
Just to add to Sridhars input - my friends and I were too highly disappointed that Teasers Bar had closed in Amsterdam. In fact the weekend 25th November I went to Manchester, UK to discover that the Teasers bar/club there in Quay Street, Deansgate is also closed.
I spoke to a couple of security men nearby and they confirmed that it had been closed for quite sometime. They heard it had a money issue. Surely not, as Teasers has always boomed!!
In any case, Amsterdam has it all, from Rijksmusuem, Heineken, Ann Frank, Canals, VanGough, coffee shops, red lights, sports bars and we hope Teasers!!!
I used to be a manager there, it does not supprise me that it’s closed down, i take it the owner did not or could not bail the chain out of the shit then.