Interrail - Amsterdam

As I've already mentioned our first stop of our one-month backpacking tour was Amsterdam. Stop laughing! We weren't there to get toasted. No, we wanted to explore the city and sight see different areas. So, we settled for a drive through the "Grachten" (the Dutch expression for canals), waterways which exist within the city center. The three prinicpal ones are Herengracht, Prisengracht and Keizersgracht. Since the boat was very slow, we even werer able to take some pictures of some sights, or of some "things" which seemed beautiful or important.

Not wanting to stress ourselves, we were just wandering around the shops in the main area and enjoying the grat atmosphere. Back i our youth hostel we got to know the two Americans Courtney, Sasha and Jaghoub (Italian guy), whith whom we decided to check out the anticipating "Red-Light-District". Covering a large area in the oldest part of the city it has been servicing the personal needs and desires of locals and visitors for five centuries. Well, that was an eye-opening experience. I was speechless and it still remains undescribable. You really have got to be there and check it out yourself to get it. (I'd wanted to take some pics but I didn't want to get a clob on the head by a high heel shoe or get tossed into a nearby canal, so I didn't.)

Of course, we stopped by at a Coffee shop to see what's going on in there: seeing people smoking marijuana and drinking coffee. As there were coffee shops on every other corner, we decided to continue our "nighttime-town-walk" with our friends to sit down in other coffee shop. Unfortunately, we got hold of such a coffee shop where the "waiter" told us: "No drinking, just smoking!" Could you imagine something happening in Austria? Well, I don't think so. After ambling around, we finally found a bar where we got drinks as well.

Apart from that little misunderstanding nothing terrible happened. I think Amsterdam is great: the people are very friendly, warm-hearted, helpful and hospitable. People from other countries should take a leaf out of their book.