Yorop Yodellings - Episode 4: Well, I'll Be Amsterdammed!

The 29th of October. My first step outside of Belgium, now that I had my residence permit. And it appears that my eyes were yet to be opened. I mean really opened.

If my tales of the Beer and Luhv of Belgium made you wonder about the general sanity of this little European country, well, you ain't heard nothin' yet.

I think one word is enough to explain myself: Amsterdam. Well, there you go. Need I say more? Most of you know what I'm talking about. This blog is dedicated to those innocent few who maybe still scratch their heads in ignorance.

Amsterdam is the real deal. In matters related to the afore-mentioned sanity issues. The best known fact about Amsterdam is that they've got laws to solve all of the troubles in the world today. This whole struggle between good and evil, you know.

Some very smart Dutch people figured out that in an international port capital like Amsterdam, there is even going to be representation from cultures you've probably never heard of, to keep everyone happy, it doesn't make sense to lay down laws against doing things that are perfectly legal in their individual home cultures.

See, this whole good-vs-evil problem can be solved if you go to the heart of the problem - the definition of what is good and what is evil. Our smart Dutchmen then took the next logical step and reasoned that if you define everything as being good, voila! You've got no more evil in the world! Or in Amsterdam, at least, but that's good for a start.

What a great idea. Tackle the problem at the root, we say.

You've got to admit that this master-strategy does wonders for statistics. Crime rates are brought down drastically because everything's legal anyway. Makes Amsterdam one safe place to live in, a heaven of morality. There's no need to smuggle, just bring it all right in, we won't stop you. You won't be robbed, just borrowed from. Your husband is never a cheater. Just a free-thinker who goes shopping a lot.

Quentin Tarantino had this nice little section in Pulp Fiction where he told us all about it. The man should be shot for making the information public. (Who am I to protest, I'm doing the same thing here). Anyway, here's an excerpt from the first scene between John Travolta as Vincent and Samuel L. Jackson as Jules:

J: Okay so, tell me again about the hash bars.
V: Okey what do you want to know?
J: Well, hash is legal over there, right?
V: Yeah,It's legal but it ain't hundred percent legal, I mean, you just can't walk into a restaurant, roll a joint and start puffin' away. They want you to smoke in your home or certain designated places.
J: And those are the hash bars?
V: Yeah, It breaks down like this, ok, it's legal to buy it, it's legal to own it, And if you're the proprietor of a hash bar, it's legal to sell it. It's legal to carry it, but...but that dosen't matter, 'cause, get a load of this; all right, If you get stopped by a cop in Amsterdam, it's illegal for them to search you. I mean that's a right the cops in Amsterdam don't have.
J: Oh, man, I'm goin', that's all there is to it. I'm f***in' goin'.
V: I know, baby, you'd dig it the most.. But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is?
J: What?
V: It's the little differences. A lotta the same s*** we got here, they got there, but there they're a little different.
J: Example ?
V: Alright, when you .... into a movie theatre in Amsterdam, you can buy beer. And I don't mean in a paper cup either. They give you a glass of beer.....

Well. That sums it up, don't it?

Take a walk from Amsterdam Centraal Stazione (that's Central Station, of coure, but these Dutch are at it again, hmph) to the city center. There are two roads that you can choose from. Be like the poet and choose the road less traveled, and you'd be avoiding the one that takes you through the Red-Light District. Like me. I prudently (note the choice of word; I didn't say "prudishly") walked the Green Light area instead. Not like there wasn't "stuff" here as well.

I'll be Amsterdammed, yeah. Drug traffickers accost you at every corner. The average person (not the junkie) lights up in the open. Sex shops are to be found dotting every commercial area.

What is a Sex Shop, by the way? They don't sell sex, no. That's meant for the red-light area. But they deal in all the accessories. Like a cosmetic store, you see. Accessories to either complement or substitute for the real thing. More likely the latter, and yeah, that does sound like a cosmetic store. It's strange, but you'll spot even the most respectable-looking of people going in. Even nanogenarians. A thriving and respected trade here, I suppose.

And even better, there are Sex Museums. Goodness knows what they have stocked in there apart from the Illustrated Kamasutra in the Post-Modern Queen's English Version, Edition VI.

Obviously, then, one of the funniest sights you will see in this City is that of a Policeman. Any policeman. A Policeman in Amsterdam?! That's an oxymoron. What are they getting paid for? Really, what DO they do? I saw a conglomeration of them in the City Center making random friendly conversation with the most arbitrary strangers. I've been trying to think of what it is that they consider their duty...

• to make sure prostitutes get paid and drug traffickers carry good lighters to help you sample
• to prevent those lovely smart blue Police uniforms from going to waste
• to improve statistics again, and this time the statistics of employment
• to demonstrate to tourists that Amsterdam locals do more than stand in windows with only their undergarments on
• to make friends with the general public and convince them to be nice and behave themselves
• to make friends with the general public and convince them that even prostitutes need to be paid
• to make friends with the general public and convince them that even policemen need to be paid

This list is open to revision. Feel free to contribute.

Don't let this description get to you overmuch. I've heard friends warning friends not to go to this beautiful city, calling it a Sin City. I've raised my right eyebrow in surprise when I've heard guys talk in hushed tones about when they plan to visit the city, in voices that they hope wouldn't carry to the girls. I disagree with this.

Amsterdam is in fact a beautiful city that has a delectable mix of the old and the new, especially visible in the mix of the architecture. Walk through the Jordaan area, and you'd stop speaking from the sheer beauty of the atmosphere. Amsterdam is not nearly half as bad as it is made to sound. The problem lies with the tourists. They make a beeline for the Red-Light area, and then go to other prospective tourists to talk about it. Hence the reputation.

The truth is, I believe one can actually live in this city without getting into all this. Red Light Areas are meant to be avoided, not explored. If you really want to cheat on your wife, you can do it just as easily - if not more - in New York. It might be easier to find drugs here, but that doesn't mean that drug use is any less in New York too. And you can stop yourself from going into a Sex-Shop the same way you would stop yourself from entering a gay bar or a sleazy theater. The morality is not in the city, it is in the individual. No individual is a better person for not coming into contact with temptation at all.

But ach, I get too serious again.

Funny things are a way of life in Amsterdam. Still, I was fortunate to witness an incident that is funny even by Amsterdammed standards. Let me narrate to you this delectable tale, me lovelies. Sit back.

One of the items on my long day-agenda was the Amstelkring, a nice little church that had the misfortune of being buried in the Yellow-Light Area. Which basically means on the border of the Red-Light area, only you proceed with caution and peek through your fingers so that you see no evil lurking in the corner windows. Oh sorry, I forgot - there IS no evil in this city anyway, by definition.

What would a church be doing on the border of the Red-Light District anyway? Oh I forgot. I suppose prostitutes have a lot to confess. Not for helping men cheat on their wives, no. That's not a sin in the Amsterdam Bible. More for issues like working even on the Sabbath or not covering their heads or taking the name of God in vain or drinking too much Communion wine.

Whatever the reason. It was a very cosy church, with art adorning the quiet comfortability. Very enjoyable for its meditative atmosphere and it's much lower intake of tourists as compared to most other churches in Europe.

So far, so good. No mishaps, little evil seen. It was on walking back from the church, though, that the funny incident occurred.

A woman crosses me in a bustle, running into one of the narrow alleys that define the Red Light Area. She is clearly flustered, and you can sense the tension of a British volcano about to break through the air. Now I am in view of the entrance of the alley. I see her start to pound on one door. People have stopped their walk. Are staring. At one, this woman in a Red Light Alley; and two, this source of pounding breaking through the guilty hush that generally surrounds the place.

Not two seconds have passed before she yanks out a man from the room. They seem to know each other. Well, that's obvious from the torrent of yells that proceed from the mouth of the woman. Everyone's stopped now. Prostitutes are poking their heads out of doors every where. Several fresh new faces are entering the alley. And through the Brit accent that dominates those yells, we realize what's going on. Get this.

She had spotted her boyfriend (or husband? that's infinitely worse) going into a brothel. Well, beat that. That's not something you find happening everyday, even in Amsterdam. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. Anyhow, a priceless moment. The screaming and yelling goes on and on, you can hear it from blocks away. Amused looks on the faces of every bystander or passerby, but the woman apparently isn't finding it amusing. Interspersed with the choicest of British slang, she screams bloody murder in the following words:

"I hate you! How could you do this to me? I SAW you going in there with THAT WOMAN. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. God, how I hate you. I want to kill you! I want to cut your head off! I want to shoot you! I want to punch your face in until it's purple and all your teeth fall out! I want to chop you up into little pieces and throw you into the canal! I want to squash your guts and feed it to the vultures!"

And other such British niceties. I kid thee not. And these lovely evidences of the stiff British upper lip are punctuated with the poor guy being beaten over the head with a rather heavy hand-bag, being kicked in the groin with a very pointy boot... Ouch. I almost feel sorry for him, simply because he couldn't do what we males usually do when confronted by an angry girl - make up the cleverest darnedest excuse for what we were doing on the night of April the 11th, and get the women to believe us. The best excuse that this sorry sucker could come up with was:

"I went in there to find you".

Gosh, that's hilarious. Did he think he was trying to solve the problem? If he goes into a brothel to find his girlfriend, it's not very complimentary to the girlfriend, don't you think? In one way, that's the archtypical male compliment. But I don't wonder that he earned a few more thwacks across the bonce for that piece of smartness.

I didn't hang around to see the end. I don't imagine they lived happily ever after. But I did hang around for a bit, wishing to goodness that there was some way to get this on my camera. But like other priceless moments, this too could not be captured for posterity on tape. For all you know, she might have spotted me with the camera, taken it from me, cut it into little pieces and thrown it into the canal to be fed to the vultures. Along with me. I ended up videoing the canal instead, hoping to catch snatches of her tirade at least on audio, even as I made the following commentary into my camera:

"Amsterdam IS a hilarious place. The fine irony. Policemen can't catch you, but girlfriends can."

Women. You can run from them, but you can't hide. Sooner or later, they're going to hunt you down. And you better have a good excuse.