Road to the World's Red Light

The trip to Amsterdam from Oslo took a whopping 30 hours long, so the following is a mix of hallucination resulting from fatigue.

The train from Berlin to Amsterdam was filled with all new sorts of flora and fauna such as sheep and droopy pine like plants. I didn't recognize the landscape anymore, and of course the German and Dutch were exactly that to my ears. The trees were kind of scary actually. A birch like tree that sprouts that typical tree form of the trunk and an ovularesque top lined the railway track most of the way to the Netherlands. They flapped their arms wildly, and it seemed as if they had circular mouths shouting at me. Flying by like banshees, the train's screeching added to the effect quite clearly. I drifted in and out of sleep as any motion full ride will make me.

I finally arrived in Amsterdam Zuid/South, only to find out that I needed to make a trip to Amerstam Central. By the time I reached central station, I had to find a locker, try to call my friend, book the next leg's tickets, and find out how to walk to the Rijksmuseum (note it's pronounced like 'rikes,' my 'rakes' threw all the Dutch people off quite efficiently). Of course, I did everything except go to the museum because the hour plus wait at the ticketing center drained any time I could have hoped for. Luckily, I found my friend and was able to have such a relaxing dinner and sleep that night.

The dinner lasted for over two hours, and apparently this is typical. I loved just sitting, chatting, and eating slowly as if the sunlight would miss our early departure from it's warmth. Furthermore, I had had nothing to eat until that night, everything else was basically snacking and so forth on my speedway through the trains and all. There's alot to learn about good eating from Europe, or at least the Netherlands.

The following day I visited the Rijksmuseum myself, and met up with my friend at about 4 pm. We strolled Amsterdam's central innard-lanes and sat for an afternoon beer (at least I had one :P) to people watch on a busier pass in Leidenplats (I think that's what it was called :P). Some performer was bouncing balls and climbing lamposts to attract attention, and he even got the police to take notice.

Walking through Amsterdam can be quite hazardous since the streets, bike paths, and tram ways are not always distinguishable right away, and most of the time they just come together. It was definitely a great place for wandering. After dinner, we had to head to the train station for the next leg of my trip, Switzerland. On the way to the station, we passed through the red light district, chinatown, and what looked like the homosexual (can I just say gay?) ward what with all the rainbow flags flowing in the wind. Most of the prosties were out for dinner at that time, though we saw a few pudgy ones around. Chinatown was small but right behind the Red Light district, easy access maybe? There seemed to be a pretty steady amount of business in the restaurants there, good enough that even the rain didn't kill the clientele there.

As I headed on board, I met up with some fellow Americans...