Roast Duck and Lazy Prostitutes

Sitting in the Amsterdam public library right now using their free computers-- awesome!!! (someone is also playing the piano beautifully nearby-- love this place!)


We arrived in Amsterdam early yesterday evening after a 3.5 hour train ride. What should have been a normal trip from Brugge to Brussels to Amsterdam turned out to be quite interesting. After arriving in Brussels, I read the sign for the next train to Amsterdam and headed to the platform. After settling in on the train and reading my new book (bought a book in Brugge-- soo excited!), the train employee asks us to show him our tickets. Turns out- we rode the more expensive, express Thalys train to Amsterdam when we only bought the cheaper tickets with the Belgian train system. Whoops! The guy was super nice though and told us to get off at the next stop (Antwerp) and take the Belgian train from there to Amsterdam.

After 30 minutes, our Belgian train arrived. No wonder that other Thalys train cost more money-- our train was sooo crowded that there was nowhere to sit! We sat near the doors on the !ground! next to some bikes. The train cars were completely full so a lot of people had to either sit on the ground (nasty) or lean against the doors. We were not too happy since the ride from Antwerp to Amsterdam is a little over 2 hours-- but we finally managed to find some ghetto seats near the doors next to a really nice couple. They were from Waco so we chatted the entire way to Amsterdam (which meant Amelia and I didn't get our usual train nap of the day)!


After arriving in Amsterdam and settling in our Christian hostel (it's pretty cool, actually!), we headed out to get some food following my guidebook. The book discussed an asian fusion restaurant, but when we arrived on the street-- it was ASIAN HEAVEN! The book took us to Chinatown. There were Chinese and Thai restaurants left and right and I couldn't even decide where to look next, much less eat. After walking down the entire street (and totally forgetting about the fusion place), we decided to eat at a legit looking Chinese BBQ place. We had roast duck and wonton noodle soup-- it was amazing!! Amelia said she was 20 out of 10 happy and we both ate in silence to enjoy the deliciousness and amazingness of our meal. SOO HAPPY!

After stuffing our faces, we walked to the Red Light District to see what the fuss was all about. It was very, ahem, interesting. There were girls in the windows trying to sell their bodies... but something was wrong! They were just standing there!!! No dancing, no trying to get customers, nothing. I learned from my guidebook that the women pay 60-150 Euros for an 8 hour shift at the windows. They pay for it by charging 50 Euros for 15-20 minutes. I could not understand why they were using their valuable time: smoking in the corner, texting??!!!, making phone calls, sitting & not really looking, and chatting to their friends from the other windows. We thought they would really try to get customers but most of the girls kinda just stood there looking out at all of the tourists gawking at them. We did see some guys ask for the price and most girls said it would be 50 Euros-- affordable??


We still have 2 more nights of Amsterdam, 2 of Frankfurt, and 3 of Munich (Oktoberfest!) before wrapping up our 5 week trip. I'm pretty amazed we made it this far without any major incidences! I look forward to going to Bath and chilling (well, kinda-- I have lots of trips & rotations planned!) with Geraldine, my landlady!

♥ from Amsterdam