Amsterdamned; The Prelude

After almost a decade I'm returning to what 'my people' claim as our 'Mecca'; Amsterdam.

By 'my people' I'm obviously referring to stoners and not sexually-deprived-perverts [haven't fallen into that category for ages – there's a smug look on my face as I write this]. I'm less Red Light District more Red Eyed District.

It's less than a week now and the excitement is starting to kick in as I haven't had what I'd class as a holiday since my first trip to 'Dam at the tender age of 18. It's hard to get away when you're caught up in a cycle of bills, shitty wage and crippling alcoholism, but luckily [as with most big events in my life, it's been planned out for me].

As a rapidly advance towards middle-age prematurely, I find less and less things I want to leave my home for [work, food, medium-large house fires], let alone my city [family weddings/funerals] and in turn; let alone my country [rape charge/pregnant girlfriend]. But it's a fucking stag-do in Amsterdam! That's harder to turn down than a... fucking stag-do in Amsterdam [sorry nothing else compares]!

I've only ever been on one stag-do before due to my antisocial attributes and obvious fact that the majority of my friends resemble Sloth from The Goonies [no offence guys, we flock together after all]. On that stag-do I was slightly out of step with the gentlemen present due to my selfish attributes of not visiting my home town and childhood friends. It's hard to re-carve out that same wise-cracking character you spent all those adolescent years building in the space of a weekend, especially with a whole new bunch of faces that have already implanted their place into your former group in your six year absence.

But this time it'll be different as we're rolling with just a four man team; me, [my BFAM;] French, [the Stag;] Chilli and [the random;] Chilli's brother-in-law [aka the guy we accidentally leave behind due to running up a large tab at a coffee shop]. Four [/eventually three] is workable amount of people, less opinions and easier to come to a decision, especially because I know how to manipulate them.

I understand that the Red Light District is a stag-do hotspot, but I think we'll be giving it a miss. AS WE'RE ALL IN VERY LOVING, STABLE RELATIONSHIPS [hopefully that sentence excuses me from buying a round for the boys]. Plus I entered the Right Light District on my last visit; it was surreal, scummy and rife with STI's – it's kind of the embodiment of me if I was an area in Amsterdam. And nothing quite prepares you for seeing scantly clad women dancing in windows. I found it quite fearful, as if some manikins had suddenly come alive and wanted to repopulate the Earth with their half-human bastard offspring. Although that could stem from a childhood fear due to a shop-window model toppling over onto me in a provocative manner. Call me an old fuddy duddy, but prostitution should stick to the classic methods; cards in public telephone boxes, names and numbers penned in public toilets and not-so-sly adverts on craigslist.

But if we're not going to bang Eastern European whores and them get forced out of more money by their pimps, what are we going to do?

… get high... obviously!

But I don't want to be one of those guys that only goes to Amsterdam to just smoke weed because the fact is you could shop around at home and spend the weekend in your house getting high on different strains for half the price of a trip to 'Dam. We need to at least do something cultural while we're stoned.

I haven't run these ideas pass the boys yet but I think I'm on to some winners;

Play 'Hide & Seek' in the Anne Frank museum.

Go to the Sex Museum and erect my own monument [get it; erect my own monument].

OK, so I didn't as many ideas as I initially thought. I was tempted by a visit to the Torture Museum, but I already deal with the public on the day to day basis and there's no rack or body manipulating device more torturous than that, so I'd probably get bored.

Be sure to check back for the following Blog in which I desperately try to piece together half-remember memories from my trip and write them into a mediocre post.