I AMsterdam

In keeping up with the two 8 page papers, the 600 page book and countless other readings from the school I keep attending, getting online to write about two weeks ago for a city that I did not overly enjoy sounds painful most of the times. I apologize for the complaining, it's late. I shall write about a couple of accounts though. 

As I have been quoted telling other people this same story I like to say that Amsterdam slapped me in the face in a way. Everything I had been told not to do in life was right before my eyes and I really didn't know how to handle it. The first night all 41 of us from our sociology class were dropped off in the middle of the city in hopes that we would eventually make it back to our hotel 30 minutes away by train. With a copied black and white map with the binding of the book canceling out some major thoroughfares in the center the odds that we all would make it back before dawn looked pretty slim, but by some grace we did. It was dark when we arrived so we decided to walk towards the part of town where the neon lights lit it up all night long. The Red Light District was like nothing I had ever seen before. Apart from the nearly naked ladies behind glass doors only a few inches away from your walking path there were sex shops, stores, and anything else your little mind could imagine. I was nearly speechless the whole time. I kept thinking can I look, should I look, but how can I NOT look? 

It was mostly me and the guys this week, but this is not necessarily the town you want to be "one of the guys" in. Some nights were more fun than others like finding this great pub that had guiness, strongbow, and anything else your heart desired along with tv after tv of soccer and irish guys singing on the floor below. I visited this bar two out of the 4 nights we were there and on second one two girl friends and myself decided to partake in some karaoke. What an awful awful idea that was. Typically I love karaoke, but we did not pick the right song. We decided on Come on Eileen, which I thought was perfect, of course I knew that song. Nope, I was strongly mistaken. In fact I only knew three words of the song: Come. On. Eileen. It was hilarious. The lyrics started and we looked at each other like what have we just gotten ourselves into. Half way through the song I think one of the Irish guys felt bad for us so he came up and joined in with his harmonica and then strangely this girl started swing dancing with me. I went with it, but I must admit I was a bit taken aback...o well when in Amsterdam! Our friend Ted was taping the whole thing and the commentary on his behalf is far better than the film of the whole event. With his jersey accent he kept saying, "These guys are terrible." What a guy! 

Okay this headache of looking at the screen from doing my paper and figuring out class schedules for the better half of the day is really settling in. I'm going to go ahead and call it a night.