All the Europe vacation pix are finally uploaded. I finished Amsterdam earlier this week with a mere 37 Flickr pix (of about 130 taken).
Currently the Europe pix are about 40% of all my Flickr pix -- a total of 280 uploaded pix across the three cities, but keep in mind that I took 1,100 pix... so I was pretty picky about what made it to Flickr.
However, I faced a Flickr dilemma with some of my Amsterdam pix. I share my Flickr pix with family and friends and some of the "businesses" I photographed I did not feel comfortable sharing with all audiences.
Heck, just on our short walk from the train station to our hotel ... initially, I wasn't sure I felt terribly comfortable with Amsterdam. While its uber-liberal/hippie vibe is the city's trademark, it is one thing to read about it in in guide books, but a whole other thing to see it in-person... the sex shops, coffeeshops (where on can purchase and indulge in marijuana and hemp), and head shops as ubiquitous as McDonalds or Starbucks here in the States. My general open-minded attitude temporarily morphed into "quite uptight American," but thankfully that vanished once I got a feel for the labyrinthine city and the de-sensitization happened pretty quickly that we were soon embracing the free-spiritness that makes Amsterdam such a unique travel destination.
Good news for you, I feel comfortable sharing these pix with W&C readers! So here is a collection of my Amsterdam pix that weren't "ready from prime-time" on my Flickr site:
Dubbed the "gay capital of Europe," Amsterdam is not terribly shy about the names of their gay bars or clubs. While some of the gay bars we passed by were more reminiscent of an English pub, I had to take a pic of the name of bar/club in the top row... and I wasn't alone, that one seemed to be getting a lot of attention.
Also in the top row, is the something I dare say you wouldn't see in any city other the Amsterdam - a gay/lesbian information kiosk and shop on a street corner! This was right next to the city's Homomonument, the first ever monument to honor gays murdered by the Nazis in WWII. And this kiosk wasn't hidden away... we kinda just stumbled onto it as it is just around the corner from one of Amsterdam's biggest tourist sites, Anne Frank House (and the kiosk/shop was directly behind Westerkerk Church).
These odd juxtapositions were everywhere in Amsterdam. One particularly memorable experience was walking past Oude Kerk, a gothic church dating back to the 13th century, which is smack in the middle of the Red Light District. You could admire the church and literally just have to turn your head to see folks enjoying some pot in a coffeeshop, a sex shop just down the street, and just around the corner, scantily dressed women dancing and touching themselves in street-level windows hoping to earn some money for the night.
Back to the pics above, just various sex shop signs... the middle-bottom pic is the Condomerie... yes, a store totally devoted to condoms (and some toys as well)! The lower left was one of the first coffeeshops we encountered -- the pic might be a bit too small (the "Double Reggae" one) -- but we got a kick out of the tag line at the bottom... "Under 18 No Entre / And Don't F&ck Around." This particular coffeeshop was one of the rare ones that serve alcohol... while you can purchase a coffee (tho for us Americans, it's more of an espresso) in most shops, the vast majority don't mix their pot/hemp with alcohol sales... but heck, if you're smoking who needs an alcoholic drink, right?!
Hope you enjoyed this other look at Amsterdam. I was going to call it its "underbelly" ... but while it's certainly not a destination for everyone... for me there wasn't a tawdry or "dirty" feel to it... just everyday life in the city!
You know we're all wondering - did you? I know I would, hell, its legal there! SO DID YOU?
Posted by: Scot | Wednesday, June 04, 2008 at 10:53 PM