I haven't been to Holland since I went with my parents at a very early age. That's pretty much as good as saying I've never been. I've always hear about how fantastic the country is, how friendly the people are, and, well, quite frankly, how incredibly easy it is to get laid. Any old weekend in a country full of over-sexed booze hounds promised to be fun. The Queen's Birthday weekend was bound to be one of the more pleasurable experiences of my life.
Upon my arrival, I proceeded immediately to my friends' place. It's about what I'd imagine a typical Dutch flat to be like. Second floor, nice & airy, nothing pretentious, lots of wood. We dropped our stuff off and made our way to the "Queens Day Eve" street party. The street the party is held on is pretty average and residential most of the rest of the year, but tonight it was filled with people celebrating. Someone, and I'm not entirely clear on who, puts a 6-story caricature of the queen or some other member of the Royal Family. This goes on the side of a building on this otherwise unassuming street. This year it was a poster of Princess Maxima as a club girl - I didn'take a picture, but I'll get one from someone else... I thought it was pretty cool of the Royal Family to be so tolerant - I'm not sure how Princess Anne would react to a similar send-up of her in the UK.
The girl we were staying with knew some guys who open their street-front home up to a sort of private party with a DJ and whatnot. That meant our Friday night party consisted mainly of drinking far too much Heineken, and dancing to a live DJ spin house music until the wee hours of the morning. The crowd was small at the beginning.
By the end of the night, however, we were rockin with the entirety of the street.
Upon our return to the flat, everyone passed out (well, everyone but Liam & I). Strangely, I felt 100% OK when I woke up, which was a very good thing since I had a morning event I HAD TO be at. It really was the morning event that was the cause for the trip. Fortunately the whole thing went off without a hitch, and was complete in time for me to make the afternoon boat cruise.
My friend Liam previously told me of the boat cruise. It consists of 50-60 movers & shakers in the Dutch party scene getting together and chartering a boat and a DJ to cruise the canals of Amsterdam all day drinking, dancing and having a generally debauched afternoon.
The canals are jam-packed with boats, but there were only 5-6 with DJs spinning. Little did I know our DJ was quite famous in Holland. So of course you can imagine my surprise when a smaller boat with 8 or so people pulled up next to us and began filming. Then two of the camera crew got on to our boat and filmed there.
Lovely. Apparently they were from the Dutch equivalent of MTV and were shooting a feature on the DJ spinning for us. So now I'm going to be on Dutch TV dancing my drunk patoot off whilst cruising around the Amsterdam canals. Not sure how I feel about that, but, well, what the hell.
After the boat party, we all went to a square for some fabulous dance party with Sasha (apparently a famous DJ) spinning everyone's favorite house tracks (do you see a trend here?). Sasha called in sick, so the whole crew I was with were quite bummed. I was actually secretly cheering whatever bug got into Sasha since I just wanted to have a nice dinner and call it a night. That's what we did.
Sunday was reserved for low-key hanging out, which was a perfect way to spend such a beautiful day. We went to a lovely little restaurant out in the countryside for brunch, then back to the city for some shopping at a street market. I found some cool clothes that were almost free (they were 5 Euros per kilo), Liam purchased some bits of Retro-Dutch decor, and my friends were content to browse.
Once it got dark (about 9:00PM), Liam and I went to have a nice, relaxed dinner, and then back again to the flat. Monday morning, we woke up and Liam drove me to the airport in our host's car. I'm now on my way home, marveling at the fact I managed to make it an entire weekend in Amsterdam without visiting either the Red Light District or a Coffee Shop. I find smoking pot to be positively cringeworthy, and, well, why bother going to the Red Light District if you don't have to pay??
Appropriately enough, I'm currently listening to the fantastic 90's hit "Back To Life". I love the random songs the computer picks out when it's on shuffle. Back to my workaday life. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that ReallyBigScary bank sees me as the kind of person to carry their team of bankers to soaring new heights. Cross your fingers.
1 comments:
Just wondering. What does a gay man purchase in the "Red Light District"? Last time I was there, and I admit it was in the early 1970's, the fair offered in the windows was for hetero consumption. My bride was with me on the stroll and was the object of colorful comments from the ladies of the evening as they relaxed in their windows and advertised their wares. There was a definite hierarchy within the district: Corner rooms >> rooms with only one window >> the ladies on the street.
On another occassion in the fair city of Amsterdam, my bride and I were joined by a female friend of ours who was visiting from "The World" (Army slang for the U.S. of A.) As we walked through the city, men kept coming up and pinching them on the butt and mumbling something. I can still hear our friend saying, "No, No, No" over and over again. Only later did I learn that a man escorting two ladies in the evening was usually a pimp displaying his merchandise.
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