Amsterdam, what a trip! ............. continue

Tweet

Mrs. adventures - part 3: amsterdam, what a trip! after the museum, we walked outside to what seemed like an entirely different place. the sun was out and the breeze had subsided considerably. keep in mind, this was only about an hour later. chris and i were still starving and set out to find a nice place to eat. we finally decided on this really cute indonesian restaurant. we were the only ones there, but the food was perfect and the price was right. i had this cocktail there with malibu, blue carcao, pineapple juice and something else. the thing was green, but sooo good. just what i needed. as we finished up our meal of chicken skewers in peanut sauce with rice cakes, i read from our little book to find out more about these "coffee houses" all the cool kids go to here. to my personal dismay, none were listed. ASIDE- did you know marijuana is still illegal in amsterdam? it's laws are just not so strictly enforced. the city layout is very circular, with canals forming cocentric circles around the center. also, cars are not so common. almost everyone had a bike, and travelling on a bike is so different there. the roads were mostly bike lanes with their own signage and lights. we mistakenly walked in these areas a couple of times, but gladly the bikes there had little bells on them they could ring so we'd know they were coming up behind. we didn't find anything remotely like a coffee house and i'd felt like all hope was lost. i was really intent on getting high in amsterdam-- it's just one of those things you've gotta do (like going to prison in thailand...) and i needed a really great story besides. hubby decided he'd like to stop in this one smoke shop for some cigars. he was told he'd get drug tested when he got back, so that was pretty much all the smoking he was allowed to do. the shop was stocked with all kinds of different flavored rolling papers and a couple of pot humor items, so i figured this would be my best bet as far as fulfilling my personal quest. as he went to pay, i casually asked the shopowner where i might find a coffee house anyway. i was directed to some tiny little place in an alleyway nearby. the air inside looked smokey. people were sitting at their tables talking. it was dark in there and i was feeling nervous. chris said he probably shouldn't come in with me because of the risk of exposure. i took a deep breath and went in alone. to my left, a bar. to my right, a couple of crowded tables. straight ahead, a marijuana counter. i talked to the guy behind the counter for a while and as a non smoker decided on the "spacecake" special, which i was warned, as a novice, to eat only 1/2 at a time. since i had been in there a while and figured chris was worried to death by now, i grabbed the unopened cake (why not a pie?) and met him back outside. i'd love to say it was 4:20 when i first ate it, but really it was more like 1:30. it was disgusting. it was covered with a thin layer of sugary s*it frosting and it was like eating a slice of a*s-flavored cake laced with cabbage. i sat there for a minute trying to digest all that had just happened. sure, i had fulfilled my search, but now we had to figure out where we were. we consulted the book (finally, you make yourself useful, book) and decided on Madame Tussaud's wax museum. i was pretty jazzed about all this. i was feeling good. we had our picture taken with "pierce brosnan" and entered the exhibits via elevator. i saw "benny hill," and as i tried to take his picture, i realized my camera's batteries had run out. what lousy timing. we passed through the first room of the exhibit (boring, some giant animatronic dutchman talking about history) and halfway through the second room's presentation, a motor for the curtain behing me started whirring. it scared the s*it out of me. that was just a curtain... just then, we heard screaming coming from the next room we were supposed to go in. i was not feeling good about this. the screaming subsided as the curtain to the next room opened. it was a really creepy looking room with some covered up pieces of furniture. we walked in and my a*s was standing straight up against a wall. then i saw some dude dressed like a ghost walk up behind chris. this took place in the slowest of slow motion. i made eye contact with this guy my mental processes trying desperately to figure the next course of action i decided to warn chris i looked at chris the guy saw me look at chris the guy sprung up behind him like lighting. he jumped the same way i did when that curtain started moving behind me. omg. this is not a good time to be high. Fu*k. oh well. we were led into a narrow black hallway where we had to[try to] walk single file with strobe lights flashing in our faces. the other people in our little group, these middle-eastern looking guys, refused to go first, so chris led the way, followed by a very paranoid me, followed by those pu*sies. nothing really happened. just your standard loud haunted house noises and a particularly distastful dead man hanging in one of the nooks. but it felt like for-eh-ver. we exited that mess and saw the remainder of the exhibit, including the likes of sean connery, dub-ya, marilyn monroe, david bowie, madonna and gandhi. the remainder of the afternoon was a blur of uruguayan cuisine, creme brulee, and trying desperately to finish my "treats" before we got back on the bus. it was freezing cold and windy as we waited for the bus to return. we boarded at about 6 pm, and as i sat there listening to my music selection, i closed my eyes and enjoyed the ride. this made the whole trip worth it. the bus started to go, and it was great. that's all i can say. the story of the umbrella:being the genius i am, i hung the umbrella on the back of the door handle to keep it "out of the way" and accessible. the door handles there are more like levers, not just a round knob. the doors there also operate on key cards. one day that week when chris came home for lunch, we ran out to pick up some delicious italian food at the gourmet italia cafe on base. when we got back to the room, the key wouldn't work. after several attempts and some quiet meditation on this, i realized the umbrella was keeping the handle engaged on the other side, not allowing the lock mechanism to unlock. we sat and waited in the hallway that afternoon for about 3 hours waiting for the locksmith to drill a hole through the door and let us back in. the first thing i did when i got back in was throw that damned umbrella to the other side of the room. they replaced the lock and gave us a new key. several days later... we returned from a trip to another area base and discovered that our fine locksmith had neglected to check the battery on the replacement unit. we waited 5 hours in the hallway that afternoon. Fu*king umbrella.