Friday the 13th...Tattoos, Titties, and Trains

Day 1:

We are docked in Rotterdam, Holland. About 1 hour from Amsterdam.

So we(me, jeff, Natalie, stacy, kim and mashawn) all got ready and waited till mashawn’s friends, Rotty and Micah, met us at a local café in Rotterdam. We jump on a tram that takes us to the train station and jump on a train to AMSTERDAM. An hour later we arrive and search out the tattoo parlor. We walk by Dam Square, the palace and so many other places. We find the tattoo parlor, which is going through a renovation so its really crowded and stressful. Mashawn and Natalie book an appointment but I decided not too cause I was too stressed out.

We walk around a little and then decide to go to Anne Franks house. OH MY GOD. It was so strange to be looking at the clocktower she heard out of her window, the streets where she saw the germans herding the jews, THE BOOKSHELF THAT SWUNG OUT TO REVEAL THE SECRET PASSAGE. It was so surreal. We walked all through the tiny annex where she lived for two years hiding from the Nazi’s. to my surprise each room was empty. For some reason I thought there would still be furniture. But alas, they still had her portraits and pictures she glued to the wall and the sinks and stuff they cooked with. It was crazy, I cannot put those feelings into words. It wasn’t as bad as the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC but it was close…similar to how it feels to go to the JFK museum in dallas. You know something bad went on there and you can feel it.

We left there and went back to the tattoo parlor. OH, and I bought some leather ties on the way, I now have 3. I can’t wait to wear them. All the rage in LA. Just kidding. We go to get mash’s and nat’s tattoo and then kim and I decide to get ours. Mashawn got the symbol for courage on his left wrist, Natalie got a hotpink star with a musical note overtop on her right foot, kim got an artistic rendering of a dancer in the shape of a K on her right lower back/butt, and I got a Tibetan mantra that means peace of mind body and speech down the side of my left torso. Just the outline of the symbols so its not too heavy. Hope you like it. They told me that’s the most painful place to get a tattoo but I swear to god the one on my heel nearly killed me. It was a crazy experience though, I’m glad it happened with people I liked.

OH, just remembered…so we’re at the train station getting ready to go to Amsterdam and I find out that in Dutch, Kip means chicken. That means if I lived in Holland my dogs name would be chicken, how embarrassing.

So, we’re all inked up and now we’re hungry. We go to this Thai restaurant and I have the most amazing chicken pad thai I’ve ever had. Sooooooooo good, and cheap. After that we want to go to see the famed redlight district. I had heard stories but I definitely wasn’t ready. Hookers standing in windows in bikinis or whatever just waiting for men to walk in their door and have sex. Found out they don’t like their pictures taken, half of them used to be men, and they charge about 50euros for a “suck and fuck” as they put it. Not bad for 15 minutes. Ha. But yeah, they had sex shops, sex theatres where they had sex on stage (I heard from a friend that one of the shows, the guy couldn’t get hard…guess it’s a hard job having sex all day), and the smell of weed was everywhere. The good stuff, not the stuff that smells like asshole but the sweet sticky icky stuff. And I don’t even like weed. Then we wanted to go home, so we did. We got on the train and ride it. We come to a stop, not ours, and then the train starts going back in the way we came. What the hell. Just before this happened we got kicked out of our seats upstairs on the train cause that was for first class passengers, of which there were none. So we had to move, the started going back in the direction of Amsterdam, then got a noise violation, then made it back to Rotterdam. Turns out that’s just how the train went. We walked back, took some pictures and now I’m typing this.

I’ll say this about Amsterdam. Its busy, bustling, very free and the people do whatever they want, and the buildings are gorgeous, nothing modern all oldworld like its always been. Its clean and respectful but its so liberal and you just feel so comfortable. Everybody seems comfortable with sex, drugs, whatever lifestyle you choose to live and they’re happy. It was also surreal to see these places that you know from war documentaries. Like seeing the palace that I’ve seen nazi jeeps driving infront of during history class. Its just crazy, and the main reason I took this contract. Anyways, we’re going back tomorrow to see the shops and prolly go out in the gayborhood. After all, it is Amsterdam, Venice of the North, Gay Capitol of the world…I think. But no worries, I’m not going crazy, I’m saving that for October 12th. J