t t came to me in a dream. Just like in Waynes World, there was the
weird naked Indian dude, who took me to meet the man himself, Jim
Morrison, who then proceeded to offer me a smoke on some of the finest bud I'd ever tasted in my life, something that made me realise I was definitely dreaming. I said through half-choking, half-smiling: I woke up in a start 'Oh yes..' I thought 'I will go to Amsterdam...Oh yes..I..will go!' (cue evil grin and nod)
Being fairly close to England, Amsterdam's quite a popular destination with us Brits, and you can usually pick up a ticket there by coach for about £40 for a couple of days. People from England go there for the same reason anyone else does, they've heard the rumours about being able to get all the pot you can smoke, the infamous 'Red Light Zone', and the sex-related theme museums. As for me, well, I just wanted to know if it was true what that dude said in Pulp Fiction about them smothering the fries in McDonalds with mayonnaise instead of ketchup. Just kidding. Seriously though, I went because friends had bragged about it to me. Some guy was like 'Kris..man, you gotta go, it's, like the prostitutes are like Playboy models man, you won't believe it. And you can get some pri-hi-mo ganga over there, none of this backyard shit we get in the UK, like..' - well, my ears pricked up on the Playboy models part, but I don't smoke hash or any of that crap. Not that I wouldn't if I liked it, but the plain truth is that the shit just doesn't work on me. I'm what you call immune-o to getting stoned-o, not that I can't appreciate an atmospheric smoke with some good friends on the occasion though.
Anyway, I guess I caught onto the romantic idea of wandering around the streets of Holland, checking out all the sex shops, hey, maybe even a nightclub or two while I was at it. Personally, I don't fancy English birds much, but anything Scandinavian, well, that's another story..
At my University one day I found an advertisement to go to Amsterdam by coach, which was arriving at 7:00pm on the Friday, so I booked a ticket. I couldn't get any buddies to come along because they all had to study. Well so did I, but who gives a shit about studying when you can go screw hookers and travel. Degrees are pretty worthless pieces of paper in my book anyhow, and I highly believe it's what you build up in your private time that's gonna get you that dream job, or make you a rich man. You never get rich on a salary anyway. I think old Good Will Hunting summed up my feelings pretty much when he had a go at that toff dork in the Student Bar, and told him that he was "wasting 150 grand on an education he coulda got at the local library for a dollar fifty in lay charges". Never a truer statement said. Yep, you find out when you get to University that it's what you feared all along, a place full of teachers whose sole job seems to be simply to read out what's in the book in front of you. I'm not saying you don't learn what you're given if you read it enough, but it still seems daft that people have to get in debt just to have to sit in front of some old professor that gives them a reading list and condescends them whenever they go to him for advice. All I learnt in Uni is that this world is full of people who can't teach. I don't know why I expected to find a bunch of geniuses who were gonna open my mind to the farthest regions of Computer Science, because predictably all I got instead were just a bunch of normal guys repeating the shameful memorised shit they said the year before to the previous student robots. If you're a smart guy like me, you take languages and something else too. I wish I could just study Japanese alone, but then again, I feel sorry for the poor losers who do single language degrees and nothing else as later on in life they discover just how many others have the same skill, and have to come to terms with the fact that they don't have any other 'modern' qualifications, and should've just stayed at home jerking off. I see a degree for what it is, a passport to a life of ease. All those guys in their cushy little office jobs claiming that their life is stressful. What? Try doing 12-hour shifts in a potato factory 6 nights a week and you'll soon discover what real stress is all about. I just need a degree to get my ass back to Japan legally, or maybe even back to New York and my lovely Central Park babes. Otherwise I'm stuck in this friggin' retarded country.
Back to the tale. So, the coach arrived and off I went. I met a nice blonde on the way, but all she went on about was how she was going to smoke her lungs black when she got there. Oh yes, charmed I'm sure. So after catching the ferry from Dover, and somehow managing not to get any sleep for the rest of the journey, I arrived outside the Chinese Boat in Amsterdam around 9:00am Saturday morning. It was cold, I hadn't taken enough clothes, and to be truthful, I was shagged from lack of sleep. And while others had gone off straight to find a YMCA, I'd figured I'd save money buy simply staying out all night, maybe go to a nightclub, and afterwards just find a bench to crash-out on. So you could say I was a little worried about how I was gonna last another 27 hours until the coach came back.
First thing I did was check out the tourist information. Inside was a bunch of other Johnny Foreigners, a few Yanks and Spaniards, and a really cute Dutch receptionist. Dutch women sure are hot, with their broad symmetrical faces and ice blue eyes. I took no hesitation in asking directly what I
was looking for '
Next, I had to check out the McDonalds. Actually, I can't remember if they used
mayonnaise or not, as actually I just had a burger, and didn't bother with the fries. But one thing I discovered that wasn't mentioned in Pulp Fiction was that you have to pay to use the bloody toilets. You go in and there's like, some old lady waiting outside and you're supposed to tip her. Well bollucks to that I said, I played the dumb foreigner, and strolled past quickly, you know, "No hablo inglaise senora" and all that. Worked a charm the first few times until one of them chased me up the stairs.
So I did my touristy bit and checked out a few places, namely the hash cafes and sex museums, since it was too early to head straight to the hookers. The Sex Museums were surprisingly interesting I thought, although one of them was a straight-up rip off. Another was full of stills and detailed artistry of all the sordid sexual acts you can imagine, usually performed by Lucifer and a Scandinavian goddess for extra effect. This was all fine to a point, but I was slightly disturbed by the fact that the place was full of old ladies who would cackle at as high an octave as they could reach every time they saw a pic that shocked them. It's like, Jesus Christ, you're sitting there trying your hardest not to get a perk on, and you're f**king granny is standing right there next to you trying to explain to her mate what the donkey is doing to the blonde in the picture. Ain't any bingo in here girls!
Those hash cafes have a great atmosphere I tell ya, as I walked into one I took a deep breath..Ahhhh..nothing like the smell of good bud to put you in a happy mood. It's quite cool because they are literally cafes, the only difference to the ones back in the UK being that you don't just order bangers & mash, you order bangers & mash topped with a Henry. There's a menu and everything, but get this, because it's somehow illegal to advertise the stuff, you have to press a little light button to bring up the list of the good stuff. And it really is top quality gear, nothing like you'd get if you went to Mexico, but just by the reek of the shit you know it's good. Northern Lights, Skunk, Kings Polm, Silver Haze, you name it. They even had that Thai Stix chocolaty-tasting stuff, pre-rolled and everything. As I've said before, I don't really smoke ganja and anyway I didn't have that much cash to blow in Amsterdam, so I got a coffee and just sat by the window watching the tourists and fine Dutch birds strolling past.
As I took a step outside the coffee shop, the cold Netherlands air hit me and I suddenly came to the realisation that I was shattered from lack of sleep. In fact I couldn't see myself succeeding in my plan to stay out all night if I didn't at least get a couple of hours shut-eye, so in the end after half an hours walking around and battling my tiredness, I finally decided to lay down on a public bench and crash for a little bit. But in the end I realised it was useless as I shivered my bollucks off to the possible amusement of the Dutch passers-by who were well used to the cold weather. I had to come to another solution, I thought. What else could keep me up all night except for my ex-girlfriend having on pre-menstrual?...DRUGS!..that was it. Nothing illegal. Just something to keep me on my feet and away from the constant drowsiness. Without much ado, I headed off to one of the little places they call Smart Shops and took a look at some of the pharmaceuticals on offer. Finally, I stepped outside and took a look at what I bought. They were some I pills called Super Caps, and on the back was written the words "Super-Caps, a natural drug that is 100% natural derived from the Jamoonga tree in the Amazon --" or some shit, Ahhh whatever, I said to myself as I popped one, and half an hour later I was jumping around like a cat with a fire-cracker up it's ass!!..God damn! that was some powerful shit!. It actually had two major effects, the first one being where you felt as though you were filled with helium, and every time you walked it was like you were walking on some kind of moon with low gravity, and sinking into the street whenever you put your foot down. Actually that was pretty nice. The second side-effect was far less fun but I'll leave it till later on in the story to reveal what that was.
I looked at my watch. 5 o'clock. I'd heard the Red Light Zone didn't really take off until at least 7:00 so I decided that I'd go and have a few jars first to blow some time. Don't even get me started on Dutch alcohol. The French have got Pernod, the Scots have got Whisky, The Czech's have got Absinth, and what have the Dutch got? Advokaat, some egg-alcohol that looks like banana milkshake. It's like a poor mans Baileys, so I left it alone and settle for the cider I found in an Irish pub. It was Happy Hour, so I decided to go for the two-for-one pint deal, and before I knew it I was a little merry. I'd been talking to the bar-maid about clubs and the like that were open till late and she was in the middle of telling me about a place till 7am when I felt the Two Pint calling and excused myself.
It was when I got upstairs and pulled out my tadger that the true evil side-effect of the Super Caps pill revealed itself. For as I unzipped and went to reach for His Holiness I realised I could barely find the bloody thing. With a confused look on my face I dashed into the cubicle for further inspection. Yes, it was true. Super Caps had shrunk my knob down to the size of a monkey nut!!. And not only that, but trying to take a piss was like trying to squeeze out superglue and when it did come out, it came out thick like honey and was practically green. I could feel myself straining to empty a now full bladder, a bloody mission and a half that took me a good twenty minutes. "Well", I thought, "so much for having it off with any hookers tonight.."
The clock struck 6:30 and I heard the voices in my head saying to me. "It's time..It's time my son..go to your fate". Off to the Red-Light Zone it was then, to see the lovely mademoiselles of the night. I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before, but the Red-Light Zone is literally as it says, red. I don't know why that didn't click before I went, but true the it's name, the streets are full of glass boxes that the girls work in, and they do emit a neon red or pink light, and it gives the area a nice smutty feel. I couldn't help but smile as I discovered for myself that what my friends back home had told me was completely true, that Amsterdam Red Light girls are absolutely gorgeous. Some of them are really are extremely good-looking, and at an almost insultingly cheap price (£30-40 quid to shoot your fat over most girls) I simply couldn't believe the bargain of the goods that were on offer. There were girls there that wouldn't have looked out of place in a double-page spread in Playboy.
The whole joint was jam absolutely jam-packed with tourists from all over. Japanese and Chinese businessman, European back-packers, big baseball cap wearing Yanks, and naturally, what filth den wouldn't be complete without the intolerable British lager lout?
One of the things I found amusing was that the Red Light Zone is districted into regions respective of the race and colour of the girls. You've got your Black whore street, Indian whore street, Blonde Scandinavian whore street, Latino whore street, and, oh fat lady sing me a song, the Oriental whore street. Naturally this is the one place I hung around the most, and let me tell you, the girls available were as good as it got. Another interesting point is that they all have their names written on the boxes so it made me think something, I mean, you know how you go to Canada or something and you can buy those "My brother went to ???? and all he bought me was this lousy T-shirt", well I was thinking there would be a market for t-shirts in Amsterdam like "I went to Amsterdam and shagged (name of hooker here)". What do you think? I can smell money.
I will never forgive myself for not having the cash to do the dirty with one of the beautiful ladies on offer, but I promised myself that day that I would be back one day. It was a good laugh anyway, watching guys as pathetic as myself with gleeful looks on their faces after walking out of those little boxes of paradise, and chuckling at big tough guys shitting themselves as their mates encourage them to go and get a hump.
If you happen to be a half-decent looking guy, you get a lot of chicks waving to you as you walk past their boxes. I knew it was just an excuse to try to get some custom, but there was this one hot black chick that seemed to go mental every time I went by, so much so that I thought she genuinely wanted to talk to me. I shouted at her that I didn't have any bread, but she persisted, and I decided to go to see her at the door. Couldn't hurt to check out what she wanted. Hell, I thought, maybe she wants to give one to me for free even. She was pretty damn cute, and as I got to the door she told me to come inside to her room, but almost as soon as I got inside and saw what a cheap-velvet suited shit-hole of a place she resided in I suddenly felt a lot less keen, and didn't see it as the kind of place I'd like to make-out in. The place reeked of the raw sex acts that'd this chick had obviously partaken in, and I felt about as unhorny as I'd ever been in my life. I felt her hands slip into my pockets from behind, and at first I thought was she was trying to grab my balls, but then I heard a jingle and she pulled out a fist full of loose change. It didn't take me long to figure out I was being ripped off, but the truth of it was that I kept the paper money in my jacket pocket anyway, and only about 3 quid in shrapnel. Hell, I couldn't even get a blowjob for the money she took off of me. She asked me why I didn't have enough gilda on me to bang her with, and I told her that it was like I said before - I was broke - and she believed me this time. Anyway, on closer inspection I realised the girl was a bit of a barker and I don't think I'd have shagged her in the end even if I'd had the cash. I don't know why I let her rip me off, I guess figured I wasn't going to get my money back, and since I couldn't be fucked to argue with her over £3 quid anyway I didn't stay in that dump any longer and I took off. I'm sure if they'd had black hookers back in Sun Tzu's day he'd have written something about staying the hell away from them in The Art Of War.
It got later and I decided it was about time I wrapped up walking around the Red-Light Zone and headed off to this nightclub called Time the chick in the Irish Bar had told me about. On the way I noticed how tired I'd suddenly become, and how the effects of the Super Caps were wearing off, so I popped another one.
Within
I walked into a McDonalds and my powers of concentration were so weakened that I remember it taking me literally fifteen minutes to figure out I wanted a cheeseburger. I noticed people had been staring at me and it was because I had been simply standing in the middle of the room staring at the floor tiles. When I finally did get to the counter I realised I was being served by two homosexual Arab who seemed keen on me, or white guys at least, since I'd just heard one of them translating his friends rather risquEcamp banter about the guy in front of me to the woman server on the next counter, and as soon as I stepped up his friend launched into another flurry of Arabic that made the server look at me and smile, and I fear to this day the words that passed over his mouth next.
"My friend he say he likes you. He likes your hair. What do you think eeeh?"
I looked slowly over at the grinning homosexual Arab and then looked back at the server through my drugged gaze and blinked slowly. He awaited in anticipation for my answer. I could see the seconds ticking away on the cheap McDonalds clock on the wall to my left.
"I'll have a Whopper with cheese."
Time wasn't all it was cracked up to be. It was okay as far as nightclubs go, but you can find much bigger and better places back home in Blighty. The drinks weren't exactly competitively priced either. I guess the only differences a Dutch club has compared to an English club is the fact that in the Dutch clubs you get cuter girls, but they can't dance, and a ripe marijuana smell that hits you in the face the second you walk in. The first time I saw some dude roll-up inside I was thinking "That guys got balls to roll up inside a night-club..", but that was before I realised what country I was in.
I met some British guy but all he wanted to chat about was football, so in the end I ditched him and started doing my own thing. To be frank I couldn't be bothered to chat up any girls that night, as the truth was I'd run out of SuperCaps and was now going into chilled out mode sitting around and biding my time. I sat next to some Dutch guy who was rolling a fat one, and he offered me a spliff in perfect English. How do those guys learn to speak so well?. Anyway he introduced me to some American chick from New York, some wacky unique chick who had the face of a saint. A St.Bernard unfortunately, but she had the great personality thing going on. I was soon chatting to her about the big cities over the other side of the Atlantic, and it's funny to think that I myself would be macking it out in New York just a few months later.
By 7am my brain was begging for sleep and the place was starting to get full of weirdoes. There were hardly any chicks left, and I got the feeling that a lot of the guys in there were faggots for 2 reasons, 1) they wouldn't stop looking at me, and 2) I kept feeling hands accidentally brush my ass on several occasions. I decided to take off.
Walking around a big empty city like Amsterdam at that kind of time in the morning was pretty relaxing, but I was soon bored, and chilly too. The cold wind was really taking it out of me, and I couldn't believe I still had like, another 5 hours to go before the bus came. I was actually starting to feel sick from sleep depravity. I hate that feeling, your stomach twists and turns, and every step seems to get heavier and heavier.
Now, Amsterdam is full of bums just like every other major city in the world, so when I saw guy with a ripped suede coat and wild-hair walking towards me as if he was going to ask me for money, I started averting my eyes, and blanked him when he tried to get my attention.
"Wait" he said, as I began walking past, "I just wanted to know, do you have the time on you?"
The guy was Mediterranean or something. I'd thought he was one of the Moroccan bums that filled up the streets of Amsterdam, but it turned out later that he was just a tourist like me. I gave him the time, and he smiled. I wondered why the hell any other guy would be wondering the streets of Amsterdam at such a time in the morning, so I started a little chit-chat. He told me his name was Gianni - John. I told him I was from England.
"AAhhh..", he said "so you are the native English speaker. So man, teach me some slang, I want to learn some of this funny stuff."
I had nothing better to do so I taught him some of the funnier words for hash, and after laughing a little, we started warming to each-other. He was a typical looking Greek but he thought he was a wop, you know, cigarette in one hand and the other all over the place. We started asking each-other about what we were doing in Amsterdam and life in general, and he told me some interesting facts about his life back in Greece, how his plan was to get work in Amsterdam as an artist and bring his wife and kid over once he'd settled in. Turned out he'd been all over the world. France, England, America, Japan, you name it. Fucker had even lived in some jungle in Indonesia for three months. Who'd of known that a guy who looked like that would've been anything but a bum but people will probably say the same about me in 40 years.
Before I realised, we'd been chatting for over an hour. John said:
So, off we went to the coffee shop, and he told me that he was actually moving to Amsterdam that day but had just arrived, so he was in
the same shite as me, walking the streets till the shops opened. After that he was gonna find a hotel, buy a phone, and see a friend about getting
a house. He suggested we should just hang until my coach came. We talked about all sorts of crap, he told me about his happiest moment, when his wife
gave birth to his daughter. We talked about everything really. We laughed about the pornographic side of Amsterdam,
smoked a few joints together (no point in telling him they didn't work on me), and then after a few hours doing his bits and bobs, it was finally time
for me to go catch the coach. By this point I was nearly sick from the lack of sleep. If you don't get much sleep, you find that you literally
can't think straight - it took me ages to find my way back to the coach and I kept banging into walls and stuff. When I got inside I crashed like I've never crashed, and slept all
the way home..
John just had one last thing to say before I left:
Gianni Springer’s Final Thought
"My friend..you don't worry about finding the perfect girl at your age, I
know that you're worried about not being perfect enough when a nice girl comes
into your life, not handsome enough, not charming enough..But I tell you, is sometimes the bad things about you they
like..and the pretty ones..bah, they still just people, you go talk to them like anybody else and they like you if you a king inside...And it don't matter if it's blonde, red-hair, Japan girl.. This girl come
when you're not looking my friend..and she knock you on your ass with her love
inside. Take it easy man, make the right choice when you come to the crossroads."..Real wise guy, John was. Wonder where that chick is? Could
be reading this for all I know..
Ahh women, the bane of my life.. Not that I'm as bad as you all think..I
mean, I AM a one girl guy, and I definitely can't understand guys that cheat -
as far as I'm concerned, you find your one dream chick and then that's it. Unless we're talking dick-cheating here. This is where a guy just bangs another girl cos he's bored, like having an upgraded wank, as opposed to banging another woman who you're in love with. Cheating like that is the worst kind of cheating. When a girl cheats, you know that 90% of the time it's not because she just wants a lay, but you ain't treating her right, or she even loves the other dude. Kind of makes me sad to think some girls'll ditch a great guy just because he fancied a different flavour for a day. Just my 2c there, but anyway I do truly believe that one chick should satisfy one guy for good. You spend
the rest of your life grooving together. I'm just saying I can understand guys who dick-cheat though. I do look at other birds when I'm with a woman, but this is just viewing the scenery, and doesn't mean I want to bang them all. It's like this,
you have the Da Vinci at home, but you can still appreciate a nice Picasso, or a Monet.
And if you ever get bored of having the DaVinci, you don't throw away the picture, you
maybe change the frame, or try to look at it under a different light. You know deep down it's an extremely valuable object that you don't want to lose. Anyway enough of my Tesco Value philosophy.
That's that then. Next stop New York. I just have to say I
really think Dutch people are cool (esp. my bud Dennis who saved this page when he told me he had back up files a while ago when I lost some of the YD files). Their accent when they speak English is so similar to the British that I wonder how the hell
they learn to speak English so well. And they're so friendly, very similar to the Japanese in their treatment
of foreigners. They're also very laid back, and I saw a lot of mixed-race couples walking the streets during the day. Yeah, I could
definitely do 6 months or so taking it easy there over in Amsterdam. At the end of the day though, it's a bit small, and can't compete with
the love of my life, Sapporo. But I'll be sure to visit there at least 3 or 4 more times to smoke some good jing-jang-joolie before I get back to Asia. Till next time then, look after yourselves....aaaaaand
each other .
"Kris..you know, you have a very honest face, my friend. I can tell you're the trust-worthy one..Am I not right? You know,
honesty is very important in this life, and you've got to be able to rely on people sometimes, no? Even those strangers you meet at 8 am in a foreign country. You got those instincts that you need to trust. Is like, we all a different skin colour, and none of us speak to each-other in the proper, er, manner, but you look a man in the eye, you know if he's the good or the gutter-trash, am I wrong?. Let's get go a coffee."
Yeah, sometimes you've got to like those emotional
Mediterranean’s. Full of life and love. Or is that piss and wind?