9 - Holland: Amsterdam

Amsterdam...

"If you were here, you would be green"

Honestly? I have no clue on how to describe the whole Amsterdam experience for us. We left Brussels with a backpacker`s agreement: meet all together in Amsterdam. Have a tupiniquim`s Holland experience.

And so we arrived at the city of liberty (or licentiousness depending on you...). And soon enough, a shock came. What a city to be alive! Full of all kinds of movements. Bicycles,  trams, cars, people, noise. Life - or the opposite - everywhere.

Honors made at the hostel, there we went to our fully booked agenda! Lots of people to meet. Our brazilian fellows, our Dutch friends from AIESEC and all Amsterdam to be discovered.

First day (the rest of it) went buy softly enough. A sunny and nice afternoon and a few calls: a pub meeting arranged. Willy (friend from AIESEC. She`s been to Brazil in 2004) met us brazilians (kindly with some friends) in a place which name i have no idea. Wonderful night! Lots of talk. Remembering old times. I felt like 2004. Thank you very much willy!

On the 2nd day, craziness begun. Thinking of describing it makes me feel weird already. Lets say that - just as you set a casual lunch meeting - we decided: at the park, lunchtime: mushrooms tasting. How is that possible? As simple as that. Shameless, fearless and with no bashfulness. For some Amsterdanic reason everything seemed right and logical. Like a weird obviousness: if we`re here how come we don`t try it?

So it was! Coffee shop, come in, choose, doubt, rank it, ranking, medium hallucination, good body heating, coherent price. Boxes on the box. Park is on the way!Eat it. And then? Wait a bit. Nothing is happening. Crapy thing. Nothing still. Pow! And then? Oh well...

 

I understood the spider`s rock. I could easily have walked the stairway to heaven. Jim Morrison`s sneak? Yep...for sure!Body warms up. Colors become more alive. Careless laughs. Bum! Sharpened senses, abrupt movements. No capability to think. No capability of being incapable. I wonder: How can someone ever think clearly in this life? It is impossible.

Sufficient conclusion: I cant think because it is impossible to do so in this life. Time? For the regular world maybe 5 hours of hallucination. For our parallel universe? Seconds, days, years. No track of it at all...

Question: How can someone live

in a world without what I feel now? Touch, feel, smell, see. HEy!! Shit! Where is my body? This is not my arm. But it is mine. How? I am outside. Shiiit. Look at my body overthere! Wow!!

Check this metal tree. It is melting. What about the grass? Its dancing towards us. The camera is being dragged!! Its melting as well!!

Ow...I can touch the sky...

The bikes! People! Wowwwwwwwww. Everything is speeding up! Rush rush rush! Calm again?? Look at that woman! She`s got 3 boobs! You`re seeing things! No no! I am fine! She really has them. Ah! All right them...

I wanna live here forever. Lets not leave. lets make a pact! Live here forever! Yeah!!!

I wonder if Woodstock was like that...

(...)(....)

Believe me! I am way closer to understanding the crazy people I see around. That was really something. What happens next? Sometime of reasonless laugh and then tiredness and a bit of depression. And your body feeling numb. But we went out nonetheless!

 

First of all, we met  Gisela at the Hostel and had a few beers. Ow, of course! Our brazilian friends were there as well! And then we went out! Beers, local dutch club and fun! Gisela, the other dutch friend, joined us!!

 

 

On the other day? Tourism! I Amsterdam!! :)). BEcause of the lack of time, only three places chosen: Ann Franks house, Heineken factory and Vang Gogh Museum. And a lot of walk! Amsterdam is beautiful! Its canals, boat-houses, bridges, small streets, people, music, fun. I loved it. Despite the craziness, It is still quite cozy to be in.

 

Ann Frank`s house is really something. It felt weird to be inside. Sadness and agony got to me. Increased later in Berlin. To be able to really feel inside WW2 is really something. And to try and imagine a family hiding for so long in such bad conditions. Not being able to go out, to walk during a certain time, to use the bathroom and on. And wondering if you`re next to be found and taken to the concentration camps...So much terror. I should ready that diary.

 

  From Heineken? Beer. No big deal besided drinking, believe me. But it is nice. A different bar for you to visit, maybe! Ehehehe. You can always have some fun. And we ran out of time and everybody was tired so I couldn`t get in the museum. A shame. So yeah, I can say nothing about one of the most famous painters in the world...

 

At night? Oh well. Stunners. Holland`s pot. This time, no parks. Just the hostel common room (which, by the way, smelled like pot 24 hours). Mushrooms were better. Smoking made me feel bad. I guess we took it for granted so we had too much of it.

 

Numbness, slow thinking, losing senses and on. I didn`t pass out, but I though I would. The floor far and far away...

And then I don`t remember much. Just going upstairs and laying down. I know I slept for almost 11 hours straight. My body was asking for some peace.

It is unnecessary to say that I did not go out, right?

And on our last day, Gisela came again to help us and give us a wonderful tour in the cities around Amsterdam. Windmills, little houses, wood-shoes, cheese factory and a bit of really dutch countryside. I liked it a lot and I do recommend it. It is only like a 20-minute drive from Amsterdam.

 

We spent some hours there walking around and getting to know things and then came back to a friendly home-made lunch! Bologna pasta!! A calm and harmless way of ending our visit. Thank you Gisela!!!!

 

And then the bus station again..

I am sorry for the lack of details. I am really tired and this post got really loooong. I will post pictures soon!

About the first sentence of the post? One of the girls was writing to her boyfriend in the middle of the drugs effect...:)

Regards.

Ivan.

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