What to do in Amsterdam?

I love France. Paris was lovely though expensive and the service and hospitality was nothing compared to the countryside. I highly recommend getting down to the Alps - cities like Grenoble and Gap and fab and do remind one of Adelaide with some wide boulevards but also some really narrow cobblestoned streets that I can certainly recommend not to take a 'camping carrrrr' down. I plan to go back to Paris because there's so much to see and so little time. The things about France that I do not take to as well: widespread lack of toilet seats, paying to go to the toilet. It all about the toilet, really. That and two camping grounds: Camping Bois de Boulonge in Paris is absolutely, by far, the WORST CAMPING GROUND IN FRANCE. The service is abominable, the services very few (pools were standard in just about every other place in France), they wanted six euro to use a washing machine (read about 10 dollars) and the sanitaires were the most disgusting place where their version of cleaning them was to take a hose and spray cold water across the floor - and even, as Mum found, under the door when you're on the toilet. I can not say enough rude things about it. The second camping ground to avoid is the one in Briancon in the Alps. We took the trouble of booking the day before because the Tour de France was stopping and starting a stage from there. We turned up, it was raining and tremendously busy. Of course they'd put my booking in for the following day and now they had no room but they would find somewhere. They wanted to give us the side of the road at the back of the camping ground, next to a huge under road drain, and run our electricity cable over the road! And pay for the privilege! We went back to the office and said it wasn't acceptable and the man was so rude, I can hardly tell you. But clouds and silver linings, or even abrupt about turns of luck do exist. We left in very poor humour and had gone down the road a couple of hundred metres to a T junction when we saw a sign in French which we desiphered to mean - free camping for the tour de france. A farmer had opened up a field on the side of the road and there were a couple of other camping carrrs there. Gratuite!! What's more, the next morning we awoke to find we were on the Tour route so we brought the van back up to the side of the road and drank our morning coffee as the bikes sailed by. We also got a bunch of free stuff from the 45 minutes of caravan that comes before the bikes: some hats, coffee, pretzels, keychains. So we fart in the general direction of those campsites.
In Paris Jason and I went up the Eiffel Tower, up god knows how many steps, to the second viewing platform. Me and heights are not the best of friends but I conquered. The view was of course fabulous. We did have a worried moment when we walked around the western side to see two separate columns of black smoke pouring into the sky, not terribly far apart - was it the metro? Had the bombs come to Paris too?
Still don't know what it was. And the next morning (yesterday) when Jason and I left Paris we arrived at the metro just as a train left. No one was on the platform and someone had left a small backpack on the seat.
It's paranoid yes, but you can't help looking about you and being wary. You sit on the train and think, this is where this sort of stuff happens.
Must say it has given me a little to think about with living in London - one of the failed attacks last week was on the line I will be taking.
Then we also climbed the Arc de Triomphe. I do advise you don't climb them both in the same day. Unless of course you're aiming for a butt of steel. The tomb of the unknown soldier at the bottom is sobering and the art on the arc itself is stunning.
So Jason and I took a train from Paris to Amsterdam yesterday and have ended up in the same hotel, indeed two doors down the corridor, from Christian, Ali and Sara.
Last night we went out for a lovely Thai meal (yes! Green chicken curry at last!) and thence to the red light district. We dawdled down the streets filled with shop windows with red lights and women in their underwear. Some are talking on their phones, some are doing their toilette, some are gyrating and some are so young it's heartbreaking.
But what is a visit to Amsterdam without trying the local produce?
We found a coffeehouse called Free Adam. It had the obligatory reggae music, pictures of Bob Marley etc. And a large menu of grass and hash.
Feeling a little Sound of Music, we ordered the Eidel Weiss. He warned us that it was strong and we thought 'ha! we're from Adelaide!'. I think he had the last laugh. We couldn't finish a joint between four and debated for some time as to whether we were allowed to take it with us for we had barely touched the baggie. It was about Adelaide prices - a 12.50 euro bag was about equivalent to a $25 one.
So we wandered about the red light district some more with increasing paranoia. Men stand on the street and speak as you go by: "Cocaine? Ecstasy?" We were offered it all. Live sex shows "real fucking and sucking?" for 25 euro. We were kindly informed by an English man whose mate had just entered one of the shop windows to partake of a black woman that a headjob was 20 euro, 30 for the lot and 50 if you want a white girl. So there you are - cheap, no?
We slept very late indeed today and took a canal cruise for an hour. There are canals everywhere, coming out in a concentric circle from the main train station. Some of the buildings were built in the sixteenth century and they love their tall, narrow decorative ones. Almost cardboard cut outs. We will stay here another day or so and then catch up with the folks somewhere nearby. We will then probably journey to Germany. Will write again soon!
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