A Trip to Europe: Part 2

Shreyaspeak:

February 17th, (continued from Part 1)

Met up AP and Sam soon and roamed around Dam Square and the shopping districts of Amsterdam. Sam wanted a few old time records and a few souvenirs to take home. Visited many stores and loved the souvenir ideas of Amsterdam. They are definitely things to look out for… In one store, a T-shirt caught the eye of Sam but she could not find the right size. She enquired about it to sales girl and it turned out that the T-shirt wasn’t kept in the right shelf. The sales girl muttered some curses about the other guys working in the store saying ‘just two more years and I shall have the money I need to get out of this and study’. She was pretty pissed about the “morons”(that’s what she called them) she supposedly worked with.

Asking as to what else she does, she said that she was in a dance troupe and, soon, would be joining Mariah Carey’s dance group that was to tour Europe. She then asked us as to where we were from and hearing that we were from India, she said ‘people say that India will soon be on top in terms of economy. And why not? You guys have so much history’. We gladly agreed. It’s always nice to hear good things being said about ones country. (spoken like a true praise-hungry patriot)

Moving on, we went to a coffee shop called ‘Hunters’. Let’s get the difference between cafes and coffee shops straight. Cafes are normal places where you get coffee, tea and snacks. Coffee shops is where you get all that and also where you get to smoke pot (Hashish). Yes, it is legal to sell this in Amsterdam in small quantities. The first puff was expected to make me cough but it didn’t. Since it didn’t, the second and third weren’t expected to make me cough but they did. (uh, huh Hashish. This is certainly what they call beyond dream. :P) The couple seated at the next table had a hearty laugh about it.

Time for AP and Sam to catch their train back to Brussels since Sam had a morning flight from Brussels back to India . Saw them off at the station and proceeded to my dorm to freshen up. It was 21:00 hours and heh, that’s very early hours in Amsterdam.

Headed off to the red-light district to catch the “action”. There were more people in this place than during the day time and more windows were occupied. It’s quite a lovely sight. The streets have a few people coming towards you and asking if you want coke. It is advisable to just keep walking in such cases… Found a topless bar to get the night started with and what went on through the night is not going to be explained here (sorry!!). Hit the bed (this one was to sleep) at around 04:00 hours CET.