With the words slaying me slow
The verbs that just don't flow
Confusing use of time
Partial stoning of the heart
Waiting for something to start
Confusing use of time

But the trying again
Makes me think it's all gonna end
Confusing use of time

But every time I turn the volume down
All that I hear is the deafening sound
Of your hearts pound

Today, the longest day
Hearing repeating things you'd say
Confusing use of time
Can you hear the void I describe
What could I say vacancy sounds like
Confusing use of time

Today was by far the longest day on this entire trip. Not only did I have to get up at 3AM to meet everyone in the hotel lobby by 4, but also we crammed so much in to one day that I about died. It probably also didn’t help that I didn’t sleep at all the night before. It wasn’t only a long day; it was very strange and almost seemed surreal. At times I was wondering if time had stopped and other times it seemed as if it was going at mach 4. I guess that this feeling made me think of one of my favorite songs of all time (see lyrics above); a confusing use of time indeed. Where did it all go?

Surprisingly, with all of the debaucherous things that happen every day and night in Amsterdam there are many wholesome activities that one can find to do in Amsterdam, we just didn’t choose to do most of them. I realized, while I was there, just how uptight we Americans are. Furthermore, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if this journal entry makes a few of the readers squirm a bit. The first major site we visited was the Anne Frank House. I guess this is a pretty wholesome activity. We followed that up with the Sex Museum, not so wholesome and then the Torture Museum, again, not for the squeamish. After that we went and soaked up the culture.

So, as I stated before, I got up at 3AM and took a shower, a shower that failed to really wake me up. I then woke up Davidson so he could get his heinie (Haha, get the Amsterdam reference, a play on Heineken which is brewed in Amsterdam.) in gear. The two of us met Matt Barnes, Natalie King, Colleen Metzger, Cate O’brien and Juell Stewart in the lobby of the hotel at 4AM. We then called a cab to come pick us up to go to the airport. The cab cost us something like 90 pounds, which is more than $150. That seems a bit pricy but it does take more than a half an hour to get out there. I guess split amongst 7 brings the price down considerably.

The flight was uneventful and it took just one hour. The airport is a bit outside the city center so we took a train in. It took maybe 20-30 minutes. Once in the city, I looked around and there are a massive number of bicycles. Somewhere I heard a figure of about one million bikes in the city for its 750,000 people. That’s a lot of bikes. (See Picture) We walked through the city in search of the Anne Frank House. Once we had located it, we went to a nearby café. Several of us ordered tap water. They proceeded to explain to us that the tap water was not drinkable because it came from the canals. So we had to buy water and of course bottled water isn’t cheap.

After the meal, we went to the Anne Frank House. The house itself is kind of unimpressive. The stairs were quite steep and narrow. I guess the most surprising thing, was the size of the hiding quarters. It was probably twice as big as I would have imagined it. The hiding place was Anne’s father’s business, a Jam-making factory. They managed to stay hidden for two years. An unknown person finally betrayed their hiding spot and the arrest was supervised by Karl Silberbauer. The family was taken to various concentration camps on September 3, 1944. That’s my birthday…how creepy is that! Of course I wasn’t alive in 1944; but still. One interesting note is that Anne’s best friend and her friend’s family found a loophole and was able to change their nationality to Paraguayan just before they were to be arrested by the Nazis. They were treated differently and were put in a special place in the camps. They were allowed special rations from the Red Cross. Anne’s father ran across her journal. Anne had always wanted to be a famous writer; unfortunately, she never got to see her fame. The journal, called “The Secret Annex” was first published in 1947 and is now in more than 60 languages. There have since been other editions published.

After the Anne Frank House, the girls wanted to go on a canal tour. The boys just wanted to walk around so I did not go on the canal tour. However, Natalie King was one who did. She wanted to talk a little about the experience. (Listen to Natalie King talk about the canal tour.)

After the boys took a walk and the girls got back from the canal tour, we ventured to the Sex Museum. It was pretty cheap to get it and I can see why. It was interesting learning that brothels had been established in Rome as early as the 2 nd century. For a short time, most brothels were shut down but they have pretty much existed throughout history since that time. A lot of the displays were pretty tacky, a man that says: Psst…over here! He then proceeds to flash you. There is a room of fetishes; this is not for the faint of heart. What I thought was interesting was that there were pictures from like the 1800’s through the present age. I guess it kind of showed how sex has evolved. Surprisingly we stayed at the sex museum for about an hour of so, it was a 3-story house that had some really cool architecture with great spiral staircases.

After leaving the Sex Museum, a couple of us found our way to the Torture Museum. It was disturbing and painful to look at. It was soooo painful; I’ll let Colleen Metzger talk more about the Torture Museum. (Also: check out the pictures and one can only guess what they were used for. Some are above and some below.)

After all the educational stuff, we decided to go bask in the debaucherous culture of Amsterdam. We walked into several shops where one could buy psychedelic mushroom and bongs and pipes and all kinds of crazy stuff that one could never buy legally in the states. I guess you can buy paraphernalia, but that’s where we draw the line. In the guide book, it talked about a place called Cannabis College. We decided to go there and check it out. It’s not a coffee shop, it’s basically and information center for foreigners who want to buy and use legal drugs in Amsterdam. They explain where to go to get them and what to do and not to do when under the influence. They seemed really knowledgeable about many things. Apparently they had a big pot plants growing in the basement and you could take a tour for a small fee but we didn’t do that. We actually wanted to go check out a coffee shop and see what it was like. We went to one that they recommended. We sat there and just checked out the place. They had a really good beer selection and a pool table. It seemed like a pretty cool hang out spot. The man working behind the counter offered to show us his selection of herbal goods. They were pretty impressive. They probably had about 20 different kinds on the menu with a description of each. We went to several more of these shops throughout the night just to hang out and check out the different scenes. There are probably 50 or so of these shops in the center of town.

You could lose your mind
Easier than you would like to think
Your best friend could up and leave you
Playing tricks and could deceive you
Standing there people stare
Let down by your own mind

Day of appreciation
For ways your mind has not yet let you down
The truth is that we will all go
Maybe five minutes after the show
You know you are a shooting star
A blazing flash then gone

Are we advancing or a collapsing
Visionary
Are we really here
Are we imaginary
As my thoughts separates
Into the many frayed parts
Torn shattered bits
My mind falling apart

What if there was such a thing
What if there’s such a thing called
dependence day
There’s no self congratulation
Just a day of appreciation
Quietly humbly
For things that have not gone wrong

Imagine the frustration
Of losing bearing of the simplest thing
So come with your best and do your worst
before
You can’t remember what you came for

Blazing out the mains
Hungry flames consume all that I see

This is another song that reminds me of my time in Amsterdam and how surreal it was. It was just so much different from Iowa. There is nothing similar in the states when it comes to the Red Light District, because, of course, prostitution is illegal in the states. It was the strangest thing seeing scantily clad women staring right back at you trying to say: Hey big boy, I know you want it…. They would tap on the window in hopes of getting your attention. Some seemed more aggressive than others and was kind of interesting to see them work. It was creepy, because, through the window, you could the bed where they would take their clients.

I have read somewhere that this trade is actually unionized and the girls are tested very often and aren’t allowed to work if they catch an STD. This was an interesting note; however, I wasn’t planning on making a purchase. We did see one purchase taking place and that was intriguing. I had also heard that taking pictures in the Red Light District was a bad idea. If you were caught taking a picture, the pimp of that particular girl would come out, beat you up, and take your camera. I decided that taking a picture was probably a bad idea so I kept it in my pocket. I did take this picture, however, which I might be able to claim was me snapping a picture while in the process of being beaten up. Actually it was a picture taken somewhere at the globe theater. I don’t really know what it is of or what I was doing. (Listen to Davidson Wissing talk more about the Red Light District.)

Besides the girls, there are many sex shops in the Red Light District. There were more sex toys, videos, whips and chains in the Red Light District than in probably all of Iowa. There were probably 20 or so such shops. After checking out some of the shops, we were convinced by a man outside to come and see a live sex show. They gave us student discounts. It was a bit awkward with all my classmates in there with me. Luckily it didn’t really seem real at the time. Juell Stuart wanted to discuss the sex show further. (Listen to Juell Stewart talk about the live sex show.)

After departing there and feeling quite weird, we decided to go wondering around the city. It was a Sunday night so there wasn’t a whole lot going on. Some of the girls wanted to dance so we went in search of a club. All we managed to find was a gay club and some other club, which cost money, something of which I had none. I honestly don’t know where it all went. I had 100 Euros to start and I was down to about 10 and had nothing to really show for it. Oh well, I had had a great time, this was probably the highlight of the entire trip and I’m glad I went. We ended up staying at a hostel for a few hours. We got back to the hostel about 3AM, I had been up for 24 hours straight by then and was very tired, yet I couldn’t sleep. I don’t think anybody was able to sleep. You could hear absolutely everything going on outside and in the halls. The beds were very uncomfortable. We got up at 5 to make it back to the train so we could make it to the airport before 7. Our flight left at 8:30. If I were ever to go back to Amsterdam, I would like to be able to spend a little bit more time there, however I don’t know if I could actually stand to be there more than a few days. It felt like we were able to hit many of the highlights of the city in just one 24-hour period. The worst part of the whole trip is that I was tired throughout the whole visit. If I could change one thing about the trip, I would have been well-rested and it would have been some other night than Sunday.

Since I’ve thrown in random lyrics into my journal, I think I will leave everyone with one more little bit, too many places, so little time.

Visit.
I wanna visit the world.
So now I visit the world.
With my time on this world.

Note: All songs courtesy of 311.