A Walkabout the Red Light District

Thanks to our dear friend, Cathy, and Rick Steves we have a detailed map of the Red Light district and a walking tour that takes in all the sights.  We start at the Dam Monument, amazingly no statue of anyone who defeated the Turks at any time in their history!

It just now occurred to me that this might be the Dutch version of symbolism for this neighborhood!

We begin our walk with the triangular sign for the shop of all things condom.

Spoiler alert: For the more prudish at heart, this is not your 'hood!  This is truly the 'anything goes' part of town, maybe even the world!  Whatever your desire, fetish, obsession, you can find it here.  And, of course, the famous Dutch cannabis, seeds and all.  There is even a Museum of Marijuana and Hash.  And a Museum of Prostitution, Museum of Sex through the Ages - I think you get the idea.  It's located right near where the ships put into port so it was a quick walk for the long-deprived sailors.  And just in case, there are a couple of churches tucked in here and there as well.

Prostitution - it's legal here, regulated, licensed, taxed, and policed.  The system is quite civilized, actually.  Women sit in curtained windows and interested customers make contact, agree on the services and a price, and the curtain is closed.  We're there mid-day so the curtains are all open and no  women are present.  'No photographs' signs are displayed but I'm assuming that's for when the women are present.

These windows go on and on and on, both sides of the canal.

As you enter this no-motor vehicle zone, there are actually blinking red lights on stanchions!  According to Rick Steves, a blue light over a curtained chamber indicates a transvestite; we didn't see any blue lights.

The prostitutes are all licensed, renewable monthly pending a physical, pay taxes on their wages, have a panic button in their chamber which, when pushed, summons the prostitution police (yes, they have their own force) almost immediately.  In addition to the window displays, there are an abundance of pubs, restaurants, and countless shops selling every device one can imagine.  It's all very civilized and such a far cry from our attitudes . . .

This isn't some skid row degenerate 'hood as evidenced by the flower market and gorgeous hanging baskets.

And everywhere, bicycles!

A view up one of the District canals.

The Museum of Marijuana and Hash.  Note the things at the roofline.  We've decided those are a winching mechanism to get large articles up many flights in these narrow houses.  Haven't yet figured out they get some big thing inside!

And back at Dam Square, we're looking at the Royal Palace where the royal family (Queen Beatrice?) actually lives.  To its right one of the major churches, all within a short walk of the District!  

Two tram rides and we're home . . . gorgeous, sunny day in Amsterdam.

Vincent, Anne, Leopold, and Heine

After a very jet-lagged sleep, we're ready to take on the sights.  We've prepurchased vouchers/tickets to the three biggies - Van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank House, and the Rijksmuseum along with a 72-hour transit pass which gets us on all the busses and the trams.  In 20" we're at the Van Gogh Museum.

After a mere 30" in line to exchange our vouchers for tickets, we're in and it's well worth it.  The Museum was established by Vincent's nephew and namesake, Vincent Wilhelm Van Gogh.  VW was the only child of Vincent's beloved brother, Theo, who died shortly after Vincent, leaving his 28 year old wife with an infant son, the namesake.  His wife smartly began showing Vincent's paintings and established a brisk business in them.  She also kept the family art supply business in Paris going and eventually her son not only took it over but established the forerunner of this magnificent museum.

Photos inside are prohibited, save for this one which we and many other visitors took advantage of.

My own, far less tortured, Vincent!

The collection is stupendous, and we could follow Vincent's development as an artist and his personal growth and subsequent deterioration.  Interestingly, his most prolific period was right before his death in Auvers, France while a patient at an asylum there.  In a mere 2 months, he painted over 70 paintings, including one done to celebrate the birth of his nephew.  Shortly thereafter, he was gone, at 37.

He was also a prolific letter writer, mostly to Theo, and excerpts from his more than 1400 letters are shown throughout the museum.  Throughout his life, he loved nature and the common man, the laborers in whom he saw so much nobility.  He strived to capture their 'essence' and loved painting their faces, hands, and feet!

After another only slightly less jet-lagged sleep, we're off for our timed entry to the Anne Frank House.  Big tip, if you ever go to Amsterdam and want to visit the Anne Frank House, buy a timed entry ticket.  Ours was for 10:10 and we went to a special door and were greeted by name!  the line to buy tickets stretched as far as the see could see, and the docent said it was about a 3-hour wait!

Again, there was a photo ban so just this one outside:

Everyone knows the story of Anne Frank and some of you may remember the 'story' of several years back when there were allegations of 'editing' on the part of her father which resulted in a kind of expurgated diary.  The truth lies somewhere else . . . Anne was a prolific, precocious, articulate child coming of age at what most would agree was one of the worst periods in modern history - certainly the absolute worst time to be a Jew.

She kept several diaries, one for herself, one the template for her book which she hoped to write after the war called 'The Secret Annex' and yet another which she was hoping to get to the Dutch in England who sent out a request via the wireless for any memoirs or diaries kept by people who were still in Holland.  Her father, Otto, gave her the first diary on her 13th birthday and it is displayed in the house.  She filled that quickly and many, many more until she and the seven others in hiding, along with two helpers who worked for her father, were taken by the Gestapo in August 1944.  Anne and her sister Margot, died within weeks of each other in March 1945.  Otto Frank was the only one of the family to survive the war.

The tour winds through the rabbit warren of rooms over two floors in which 8 people spent over 2 years. The stairs are perilously steep and narrow; one fellow behind Tim actually lost his footing and fell into Tim on the way up to the third floor.  The rooms were left empty; the only mementos are the heartbreaking growth/date lines penciled on the kitchen walls, one for Anne and one for her sister, Margot, showing how much they grew in their two+ years in hiding.  We concluded that if the rooms had been furnished, it would be virtually impossible to tour. Photos show how cramped everything was.

To this day, no one knows who betrayed them; the four people in Otto's office staff knew, the warehouse staff did not (Otto owned two small factories which occupied the ground floor).  And before the Frank family went into hiding, Otto asked the office staff how they felt about the possibility.  To their great credit, they not only agreed but were probably largely responsible for the family's survival for so long.  The two men (there were two women as well) were deported with the Frank family and, like Otto, survived the war.  The women were the ones who saved all of Anne's papers and returned them to Otto after the war.

No doubt, this neighborhood looks much like it did in Anne's time . . . still beautiful.

I'll leave our afternoon adventure for the next post.  For now, we're headed back to our flat and a much-needed meal.  Hence Leopold!

Just over the bridge from our flat is a shopping district and a restaurant we passed on our way to and from the market.  It's a gorgeous, sunny day and we decide to dine al fresco.  Leopold is the proud owner and chef and he tells us he will make us a 'typical Amsterdam meal' - after failing my guttural language primer (can you say hochhachbals?) we agree he will bring us his famous 'balls'.

Oh this is Dutch comfort food!  It's a baby meatloaf!  Utterly yummy - Leopold is pleased.  We did look at the menu and couldn't make heads or tails out of it.  He tells Tim he makes one meal a night - a true 'daily special'.  The menu is actually a month of meals!  Our balls are a staple, apparently always available at lunch.  He tells us to let him know by 3pm if we want to come back for dinner as it's frequently booked up.

Next to us is a single fellow, nursing an Amstel and we strike up a conversation (surprise, surprise!).  He is so curious because he says this is not a tourist neighborhood; it's all locals.  Music to our ears!  His daughter studied in the States and we talked about LA and the US for a bit.  Compared cultures . . guns are absolutely outlawed in Holland.  If you belong to a shooting club, you may register a weapon but must carry the bullets separately and the whole mess in a special carrying case, clearly identified.   Our new friend, Heine:

Next post, our walkabout in the Red Light district!

Oh Amsterdam, My Amsterdam!

I'm in love!  Amsterdam is an absolutely delightful city - right up there with Melbourne in the 'most livable cities of the world' category.  For starters, there are very few cars.  Bicycles are the preferred method of transport and they outnumber cars about 100 or 1,000 to 1.  And the public transit system is very efficient and inexpensive.  Here in the 'old' city we haven't seen a building over 5 stories tall which makes it all feel very human-scale.  This is a typical canal neighborhood, our flat is on the right, just past the white picket bridge.

But I get ahead of myself in the adventure narrative.  This one got off to a very rocky start with the absolute worst long-haul flight we've every had, and this on my beloved 787 with our long-time FF airline, UAL.  Imagine a packed plane (4 people agreed to a bump at $500 each) 9.5 hours with no in-flight entertainment (no, not even Lawrence Welk on the headset!) and the total deprivation of no reading light!!  The topper was a youngster asleep in the middle seat, head on mom's lap on the other end of the row and the youngster kicking me with torturous irregularity, no doubt the result of this nightmare flight!

Tim was able to sleep and generously loaned me his iPad which, with the brightness turned full-on, allowed me to read.  And as if this wasn't bad enough, the food was laughable.  As always, I take my regular stroll about the cabin every couple of hours and have a lovely chat with one of the 1st class attendants in the galley.  She tells me that even the in-flight in first class isn't working and that she 'blames' this mess (not the first time this has happened apparently) on the company.  Then we read in this morning's headlines that the CEO of UAL has resigned while the object of a 'probe' by UAL and NY Port authority officials.  We also will be resigning our membership in this club . . .

But it was all worth it . . . we get all our tourist paraphernalia at the central train station and find the bus to our flat. I was taken with its description, especially its size (I think I got this right - 80 sq meters) which is quite generous for Amsterdam.  And it's on the ground floor; elevators are not plentiful here.  Hans is there to greet us (we are only the second guests) and he's a delightful bit of eye candy after a long trip!  Photos . . . (no, not of Hans):

Living-dining room; kitchen behind us.

Second bedroom and door to garden; our bedroom and bath to the right.

We are catatonically tired - it's now 6 pm on Monday and we left Tucson at 12:51 pm on Sunday.  A quick trip to the local market and then crash.