Amsterdam, Netherlands

Nothing like a weekend trip to Amsterdam to recharge…or completely exhaust myself. I met up with the always classy Amy Brooks, one of my friends/classmates/coworkers (/secret admirers) from college. She now works for a company headquartered out of the Netherlands and was there on business for the latter half of the week, so I got to mooch on her company hotel.

Amsterdam Pictures

Ames was busy with customers until after dinner, so I wandered around Amsterdam by myself all evening. I went directly to the Sex Museum, since it was on my priorities list but not on Amy’s. This place was a lot tamer than I was expecting, and actually had some funny stuff too. There were some exhibits with mannequins set up in compromising positions, drawings and comic porn, displays of sculptures and old artwork portraying sex through certain periods of history (ancient Egyptian, british American war sculptures of men still in half their uniform making it with their ladies, etc.), and even some motion activated sensors to have naked mannequins lunge out at you. Of course there were also some graphic pictures of porn from when cameras were first invented. Nothing quite like a 19^th century 3-way to get the blood pumping.

Quick side note: There was a woman, probably around my age…maybe a little older, walking around the sex museum at the same pace as me. She was also alone, and we even watched some of the big animated exhibits together, or once she looked over when I laughed at condoms inflating upon pressing a button (yeah, I know I’m mature). This was very awkward to me because I wanted to be polite and say hello, but there really is no way to not come off as a creep in this situation. It is unintentional sexual tension brought about by the surroundings. I mean…I’m a strapping young man…she’s an attractive, pierced, tattooed woman…we are looking at porn through the ages at the same pace; Very interesting dynamics…I’m not even sure she spoke English. Actually, that would be an even better story if she didn’t speak English and I was able to persuade her to join me in the padded booths with streaming video (yeah, they have those there…I stayed away from that section). What if we ended up getting together and people asked how we met? “So, we were at a porn museum…” Luckily, before it got to that point, we lost each other when I stayed in the fetish room probably 10 times longer than she did…missed connections…

Second Side Note: Why are the booths padded? Are strange creepster guys really tossing themselves around in there? Padded booths should be reserved for solitary cells at insane asylums, not erotica booths at sex museums.

Third Side Note: Did you know that anal sex was “invented” in the US? I find this hard to believe, but that’s what the plaque in the fetish room said. There were actually 2 plaques for beastiality.

…but I digress…

I emerged from the museum a lesser person, and wandered around town some more. This is going to sound dumb, but I ate at Subway and was really excited about it. Even though I was in the US about 7 weeks ago, I don’t think I have eaten Subway in at least 6 months.

I ran into Amy on my way to meet her at the hotel, still with two of her customers; my companions for the evening. We sifted through crowds of people and clouds of weed smoke to have a couple beers at an outdoor café. If nothing else, what is Amsterdam if not a great place to people watch (which happens to be mine and Amy’s favorite pastime from college). The four of us then went to another place to drink closer to the Red Light District.

Of course we took a lovely late night stroll through the Red Light District around 2am. I did love seeing a few guys come out of these booths; the shame in their eyes as they scurry away. I wonder if any of them gave their woman a kiss goodbye?...nastyyyy Anyways, I didn’t get to see all of the Red Light district. We never made it over to the Asian section or the Ladyboy street, so I will have to go back sometime.

On Saturday, we didn’t get going until after noon…oh well…got some pizza and wandered around town some more and took pictures. We made our way to the Anne Frank House, but the line was very long so I didn’t get a chance to see that this time. The four of us then took a water bus over near the Rijksmuseum to see the Van Gogh museum, which was lovely.

Chris and Justin had to leave for Antwerp for some more business time, and Ames and I hung out in a park for awhile before heading to get dinner and drinks again. What fun...a night of Argentine steak, malbec, and more people watching. I saw some of the worst haircuts and interesting looking people...drank some delicious Heineken and Bavaria, and harassed Amy with the "that's your boyfriend" game. Overall, a great weekend. Unfortunately, I didn't go to the Heineken Experience since it was closed for renovations. But really, all this means is that I will have to go back sometime.