Am Dam Virgins

Let's go back, with a wibbly wobbly effect, to the first day of travelling. Ah those virginal (1) halcyon (2) days. 

As you do when you're going somewhere unknown you book a few nights somewhere to stay, to save you rocking up into the big unknown, a stranger in a strange land and having to find a hostel. Not everywhere speaks the Queen's language dontchaknow. So I booked into the Flying Pig which is next to the Vondelpark. Nice bit of greenery I thought. Splendid. (I was in Amsterdam by the way.) Bad idea. 

It was so the wrong hostel for me but I'd booked in for five days. Yay. Now, for a certain kind of person it was probably awesome. I'm not knocking the hostel. The staff were friendly, it was clean, they had...services. But I'm not 18 anymore which was the average age of the people staying there. I didn't really appreciate the dance techno wank garage music being played during breakfast. I didn't appreciate the absolute obsession with getting high. People enjoy it and that's fine but it's not for me. I have my reasons and I ain't sharing them. Incidentally, the peer pressure to partake can be immense anywhere but I'm strong. I can endure.

I did appreciate the level of drinking that went on in the dorm before all the youngsters all pissed off clubbing. I was wasted by that point. Did I have that amount of energy back then? Gawd.

Amsterdam itself was lovely. Great city. The people are so friendly, the level of English is better than most of the gobshites in England, great museums, the Heineken brewery, the red light district (nothing sexier than a woman in a window) and more.

There was a dude in the hostel. He was English. He was there for 3 days and then going home. The conversation went like this:

He gets up out of bed.

Me: "alright mate? Where are you off to today?"

Him: I'm gonna go downstairs and get high I think.

Oh, yeah? What you doing after that? 

I'll come back to bed for a kip.

And that was his entire cycle. For 3 days. Bed. Weed. Bed. Weed. He said it was his way of releiving the stress of his day to day life. Have a wank dude. It sorts me right out. Why go all the way to Amsterdam when you can relieve yourself in the comfort of your own bed?

You had the Rijksmuseum 10 minutes to the left, the Van Gogh museum 10 minutes to the right, and amazing shit right out the front door. But no. Let's get off our tits on drugs instead. so much culture, such vibrancy and awesomeness, not to mention how great 'Dam is to cycle around - the cars give way! and it's obscenely flat! - I think it's a crying shame people don't experience it. You may as well just go to Bognor.

(1) I've always thought that sounds like it pertains to a woman's lady parts

(2) don't know what that means so if I've used it incorrectly points to you for knowing