My European Tip, Part 5: Amsterdam
When I arrived in Amsterdam, I went to my hotel, the Pulitzer. I must say, the hotel itself was worthy of being a tourist attraction, it was that beautiful.
View From The Front of Hotel
This picture is the Canal and dock that are situated directly before the front door of the hotel.
The actual front door of the hotel is below:
Hotel Front Door
It all had a very Old World flavor to it, especially the quaint design of my room and the courtyards:
My Room
Courtyard
More Courtyards
It was set up very much like a maze, with access to various courtyards. The hotel is so beautiful that it is listed as one of the places to see in the book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die: A Traveler’s Life List
The duration of my stay was from Sunday night to Thursday morning. However, most places were dead. Unlike Stockholm, which was pretty much jumping every night of the week during the summer, Amsterdam is very much dead. The partying happens from Thursday to Saturday, and to a lesser extent Sunday, which is still a party night but not that jumping. There was only one really good place that Sunday night, called Jimmy Woo, which from the outside seemed like an incredibly nice hotspot. Like my first night in Stockholm, I went out early, dressed to the nines, stepped to door and…was totally dissed for not being on the guestlist. Mentioned the usual stuff, that I was from NY, on my own, ready to spend money, I was a record producer, everything. They did not budge. As I said before European guestlists are tough. Much tougher than the average NY guestlist. In fact, if you look at reviews of the club online, you’ll see most of the spot focus on how hard it is to get in and what a general disappointment it is once you enter, as it seems most of the people inside focus on showing off and profiling. I went to another club named Paradiso, had a so-so time. It’s supposed to normally be a good club, but on the night I went they chose to have a surprise pageant for Mr. Gay Amsterdam or something, so it was filled with homos that night. Yay.
From Monday to Wednesday, everything was DEAD. One of the funny things about Amsterdam, Americans have a stereotype about it being an all-day, all-night party and expect Dutch people to be these hard-partying degenerates, but the only people really acting crazy and walking around stoned on space cakes were American and British tourists so far as I could see.
Dutch people are surprisingly chill and laid back. They tend to be unfazed by the Red Light District. I saw mothers and young daughters being lead through the Red Light district walking between the rows of whores in the windows like it was the most normal thing on earth. I even saw what seemed to be a field trip of young boys and girls walking down the corridors of whores (whorridors?) standing in windows. It’s all old hat to them. They are not at all judgmental and believe in live and let live, yet Dutch people don’t really seem to partake in all the vices so much themselves on average.
Even if you have no plans to patronize a prostitute, everyone goes to the Red Light District just to see it for themselves. It is a bona fide tourist attraction for all races, ages and genders. And there are some pretty good bars there too (my favorite being T’Loosje). What I really didn’t expect though was how anxious I got when walking around there (and it probably didn’t help that I was walking around somewhat drunk). I mean, shortness of breath, discomfort, paranoia, the whole nine. I walked briskly and was afraid to look any of the whores in the eye. And I’m not normally a shy guy or a prude. I remember the old vice-ridden, pre-Giuliani Times Square vividly from growing up, and I’ve been to plenty of strip clubs, but somehow seeing it so open, accepted and blatant in the daylight had an unexpected effect on me. Suddenly all my years of Catholic repression kicked in and I actually thought of my devoutly catholic mom strangely enough. I had a very acute Catholic morality attack and felt strangely panicked. All that sexual energy concentrated in one area, and it wasn’t at night, in a dark smoky room or a crowded, dimly lit nightclub, it was in bright and broad daylight for everyone to see. And the passageways with the whores were very, very narrow with a rows of prostitutes in windows on either side of you, staring at you, banging on the glass to get your attention, or sometimes even opening the door to yell in your face to get you to buy sex, and the best way I could describe the experience was sexual claustrophobia; a really cramped narrow space with flesh visible in every direction, plus I’m absorbing all the intense, hungry sexual energy from all the men around me, all the emotionally detached, money-hungry energy from the whores and all the mutal contempt flying from everyone toward everyone else like stray bullets in a free-for-all shootout.
Once my Catholic relapse wore off, I was able to enjoy the rest of my time in the Red Light District. I often underestimate how profoundly screwed up and repressed my 9 years of Catholic schooling made me. I wasn’t sure for 15 minutes whether I wanted to be revulsed by the whores, titillated by them or whether I wanted to pity them. Once my episode wore off, I went back to my usual self and stopped judging them altogether. The way I got that strange little panic episode to wear off was to force myself to keep eye contact with every whore I passed and force them to break eye contact first. I regained my sense of power over myself. But it’s amazing how just the aura of unrestricted female sexuality can mentally and biologically disorient us men if it comes in strong enough doses. Men who truly believe they rule the world and not women are utter fools.
As I’ve mentioned before, Dutch people are incredibly tall. Average male height is 6′3 and average female is 5′7. I am 6′2 and was often meeting women who were my height with flats. Also, this is not something that is specific to the native Dutch race, the tallness was across the board and noticeable among Dutch citizens of all races. This upshoot in height among the Dutch is a relatively recent phenomenon, within the past 50 years if I remember correctly (I’m too lazy to look it up right now, sorry), so the change seems to be affecting all races there across the board. I actually saw more of the tall, blonde stereotype that people expect to see in Sweden in Amsterdam.
And everyone rides bikes. Everywhere. Even to the bar or nightclub it’s common to see men and women arriving and departing on bicycles, even if dressed ultrastylish. At 4 AM I’d see packs of guys and girls riding drunk from the bar. There are somewhere between 1.5 to 2 bikes per person there. And people tend to buy shitty ones for cheap because it’s common for them to get stolen. It’s not often I saw a really nice bike around, and I was told that fear of theft was why.
Since the nightlife was dead, I did most of my socializing in quiet bars doing early evening drinking. I met a lot of interesting people while sitting around drinking outdoors. First, Dutch people are very, very smart on average, at least among the people I met. They are very intellectual, both the guys and the girls, and it took some getting used to for me. In NY, I get very used to vapid conversation, and I feel like I have to dumb things down a lot. It’s not so much about what people know here, it’s that I feel there is a profound lack of intellectual curiosity in NY (I don’t want to generalize and say all of America, because I haven’t seen much of the rest of America sadly). No one is interested in anything. People don’t read books. People don’t like discovering new music or studying history, except for hipsters, and they just do it to be cool and show off and be pedantic I find. In Amsterdam, I readlly encountered a lot of intellectual curiosity. I never had to dumb down anything. This was especially jarring with speaking to women there, because here in NY I just grew used to the average woman not having much of anything interesting to say except for celebrity gossip and shoes and the latest restaurant openings. Or which Sex and the City character she was.
In Amsterdam, I found myself debating with guys about Afrobeat music, which Iggy Pop album was the best, the music Iggy Pop and David Bowie made in Berlin, the current state of hip-hop, race, culture, and other topics on a very deep level. It was funny to hear them describe dating in Amsterdam as well. Many people expect Dutch women to be really easy because they somehow think the Red Light district and drug policies are a reflection of the average Dutch person’s behavior. In actuality, they aren’t. They’re very nice, and are very willing to hang out and talk to a strange guy for hours just to be friendly, then leave without exchanging personal information. And as a guy, the Dutch men said, you don’t expect anything just because a woman is talking to you for hours. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Even dates don’t necessarily mean anything. The guys told me that they often go out on dates, sometimes four or five dates in a week, and they don’t walk into them with any expectations of getting laid. Dutch girls are just very nice and friendly and are willing to give most decent guys at least one date to feel them out. A guy I met said that sometimes the conversations were so nice that he was happy just going on multiple dates because of the nice people he’d meet and that any sex that happened, if it happened, was just a bonus. And they are very skilled at conducting engaging conversation I found. I personally had debates with women there over favorite philosophers (Neitschze vs. Voltaire vs, Rousseau) and who was the most brilliant scientist (Tesla vs. Einstein vs. Newton). One guy’s girlfriend told me how she enjoyed reading the works of a great intellectual from centuries ago because she found it important to be reminded of how every supposedly novel thought you’ve ever had and patted yourself on the back for today was already thought up by someone centuries ago and expressed a million times better already. The reason she found this process important is because it served to periodically intellectually humble her and keep her grounded and keep her from getting too narcissistic.
I explained to the guys I met how NY dating is different than Dutch dating. Dutch girls are very nice and will rarely blow you out of the water rudely from the very beginning. They are very approachable. The downside to this friendliness is that it isn’t always easy to tell if they like you sexually or are just being nice. You sometimes have to be very patient to find out. In NY, though, women are so incredibly rude and rarely feel the need to be nice to you unless they want something from you, so when you are a guy here and you simply don’t get dissed after introducing yourself, you are halfway there. She must be at least somewhat intrigued to even let you utter a follow-up sentence. If she smiles and reciprocates conversation and asks you questions about yourself, you know she must like you. If she returns your phone calls, makes a date with you and doesn’t flake out beforehand, you have crossed a major hurdle and sex is almost a sure thing, if not on the first date then at least by the second or third. Because the initial screening is so damn tough, the positive is that just getting your foot in the door is a good indication that she is sexually interested.
For a perfect example of how the grass is always greener on the other side, one of the men in the group I met heard my description and unlike his friends thought NY sounded 1,000 times better. He was like “Wow, you mean I don’t have to talk about deep, intellectual topics or have probing conversations or keep wondering if she is just being nice or is interested?” “No,” I responded. “If she lets you stick around and have a conversation in NY, she’s interested. And if you make it to the first date stage and she hasn’t flaked, you have a solid chance at sex.” “Man, that sounds like heaven!” “Don’t you think that sounds a little empty and shallow?” another guy in the group asked. “It just seems like such an empty interaction. I like our girls here and the substance they have to their character.” “Screw that,” the first guy said. “I’m getting too old and impatient to do a bunch of fucking dates a week. NY sounds way better.”
Go figure.
Anyway, one last post coming up in this series and I’ll leave this vacation topic alone. In the final part, I’ll talk about how Europeans view other Europeans, how they view Americans, and most importantly, how they view the “Muslim problem,” which seems to be the main issue of the moment on the continent.
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damn, those are some tall folks!
loved the “grass is always greener” dating convo re: NYC vs AMS.
I’m always amazed by how easily men are swayed by women, even all those PUAs who think it’s the other way around. Fortunately, I’m effectively immune. Nothing good can come from delegating your decision making to an organ other than your brain.
As far as the vast majority of people in Europe and elsewhere in the West are concerned, there is no problem and never will be. If you question them about the topic, they’ll eventually call you a racist and begin to cite Orwellian pro-multiculturalist propaganda.
It’s only a matter of time before countries like Sweden and the Netherlands become Islamic or are plunged into a civil war. Better visit them while you still can.
Fascinating stuff – perfect example of how culturally socialized we are – toss a Dutch girl in NYC for a few years and before you know it she’d probably adapt and learn to “rebuff, rebuff, rebuff” and talk shoes and “The Hills.” I’d imagine the average US city girl could probably wrap her brain around the concept of engaging conversation if that was the way “everyone behaves.” Same pack mentality, just conditioned to a higher intellectual level.
I visited Amsterdam when I was 15 years old.
First time out of the country, spent three weeks there.
Was amazed by how tall, blonde and…glamourous everyone looked compared to the pack of jeans-and-sweatshirt friends I was traveling with.
Wandered into the red light district trying to find the “Hard Rock Cafe” to add to my t-shirt arsenal (and ok, my evangelical christian eyes had never even laid eyes on a bong, so I had no idea what the “pretty painted glass-blown things” were).
You’d think I’d have been bowled over by the women in the window (my exposure to sex at that point was pretty much limited to what happened behind closed doors on “Days of Our Lives” or that nice, romantic scene in “Dirty Dancing” or something). Interestingly, having everything so dramatically, unashamedly on-display made it more like…being at a zoo or watching The Discover Channel – not possibly REAL – it was so removed from my brain’s idea of “sex” at that age (my American, Christian, high-school-shaped view of sex) that the women seemed almost…asexual (strange as that sounds). It was as much a tourist trap as sex trade. Those weren’t REAL women, they were actresses, there to shock the tourists, or feed their curious need to “see the gritty, depraved Dutch on display” right? People couldn’t possibly make their living like that…I was pretty much able to dismiss it as so far removed from my American reality that it didn’t connect in my brain as being prostitution. It was like a…staged show.
Would be interested to go back there today and see how my reaction would differ (and would be interested to compare it to your experience since I’m on the other side of the gender fence – not sure what my reaction would be at this point – particularly since I’d be traveling with my husband which would probably color how I’d respond to all of it a bit, too).
I have dozens of pictures of all of the bikes lined up outside of the train station, hundreds of them, all mostly identical with their little bells on the handle bars…
Good take on the city – curious to read your next installment. My favorite 4th of July ever was spent in Paris, watching interviews on TV of Europeans commenting on Americans – classifying us as happy and ignorant. Eye-opening.
i’m addicted to your blog now. another great post. i can’t wait for you to comment on the muslim problem.
Haha T, you brought back some memories. As I mentioned before, I visited AMS myself last year. Spot on about the level of intellectual curiosity — what a breath of fresh air, eh? I never hooked up with the local girls, but it was so enjoyable that people (attractive no less) were approachable and friendly to a foreigner like me. However I have to acknowledge the truth to what your NYC-loving lothario was saying. Guess the grass IS always greener. Good topic for debate though.
Funny about the way you felt walking through the District. If you hadn’t brought it up, I wouldn’t either
But yeah, during the daytime I got a sense that could only be described as……….creepy? You know what I mean. It was even weirder seeing families with their kids strolling through. (None of this was helped by me flying high on some of the best endo I have ever tasted). Surreal.
Most of the whores looked like skanks. There were a few however that *almost* had me reaching for my wallet…
Did you go to any of the live sex shows? THAT would’ve weirded you out. Remind me sometime to tell you the story of how I got dragged on stage to “participate” and got my drawers yanked off. Yikes.
Paradiso: Yeah, I patronized that joint. Some kind of weird hip-hop show (wasn’t that good), and no fine bitches. I bounced. Did you know that place used to be a church? Nice change of pace from the usual antiseptic modernity you usually find.
As with you, the week I was there the place wasn’t jumping. I did do a lot of partying at the hotel I was staying at though — there was an airline crew staying there and I met some flight attendants.
Great post — Keep ‘em coming.
TC
I think I’m going to start calling my street the ‘whorridor’.
Hahah! Also loved ‘whorridor’.
I remember my first trip to the Dam 8 years ago, walking through the Red Light District with a friend of mine. We’d have got so much hassle walking through, say, Soho in London, at midnight. Not in Amsterdam. I also recall that it smelled of wee :-/
It’s so true that the Dutch are considered, generally, to be clog-wearing, ‘yah, ish good, yah?’ stoners with tulips in one hand, or a spliff/dildo in the other. Not true! There is a Dutch girl at my work who says that English guys find it difficult to comprehend that she is quite normal and does not have any weed. (Being of Jamaican extraction, I know how THAT goes.)
I now have a new Dutch boyfriend and he tells me that the Dutch are really quite conservative, with a tendency to worry about what their neighbours would think. But on the whole, I found them welcoming and friendly, and very intelligent, conscientious people. That’s why I want to go back there to live, especially after spending lots of time there with my ex (also a Dutchie) – that, and the fact you can walk everywhere. And why wouldn’t you? Amsterdam is purdy
BTW – that hotel looks WICKED.
I saw mothers and young daughters being lead through the Red Light district walking between the rows of whores in the windows like it was the most normal thing on earth. I even saw what seemed to be a field trip of young boys and girls walking down the corridors of whores (whorridors?) standing in windows. It?s all old hat to them
*blows a kiss a T*
This my dear is what really floored me about Amsterdam. Amsterdam really makes all of the fuss the religious right do in the USA about people being turned out because of exposure to alternative lifestyles look like hogwash. At the end of the day, people make choices about how they want to live their lives.
It is nice to read your story. Being from Amsterdam i want to comment a couple of things:
First of all you can party all week long in Amsterdam without a problem. you just have to know when and where.
During the week club Winston (next to the pretty cool hostel St. Christoffers), Studio 80 and the Sugar Factory are good options. Not packed every night, but always something going on. Paradiso is THE place for concerts, not for club night. Just came from a concert over there and it was magical (it was Afro beat, referring to your conversation). Sugar Factory and Studio 80 and sometimes the Melkweg have much better vibe clubbing wise. Further more there are always parties at unusual places, But you have to know where to find them.
your Hotel was also the stage of the Amsterdam part of Ocean’s 12, which was actually a pretty shitty film.
Women in Amsterdam are pretty beautiful and if you hit the right button they are willing to get close to you. But because there are so much young people hanging around people cannot make choices and so Amsterdam has a much higher rate of singles than anywhere in the country (assume this is the same in NY).
Further more i want to react to Steve Lurkels’ post. The Netherlands and specially Amsterdam have had an open minded tradition towards religion and culture. It was Spinoza, the most famous philosopher from Amsterdam, that stated as one of the first ever to separate politics and religion a.k.a. secularism. His attitude was like believe and do what you want, but don’t bother other people or politics and that state of mind is pretty common over here still. The Muslim population is about 6% of the total population and they vote (if they vote) for liberal/left wing parties. Those parties insist on secularism. The leading coalition at the moment is dominated by Christian parties, so your comment about Muslims taken over our country is based on fear either/or ignorance. I life in the eastern part of the city and there is an high concentration of Muslims in this area there is respect between Muslims and non Muslims.
Maarten – your knowledge would have SO come in handy while I was there. No one was able to help me with nightlife at all while I was there. Everywhere I was sent was closed.
Also, I heard similar descriptions about dating from other people there. I noticed it with my eyes too, a lot of single people.
By the way, Steve Lurkel didn’t mentin the Muslim thing, another commenter “random passerby” did. I don’t know specifics about Muslims and how much of the population they make up, but I did find they were a major topic of conversation everywhere I went in Europe, including Amsterdam. There seemed to be general anxiety about them from people I met, everyone had very strong opinions on the matter. And it wasn’t like I was actively bringing up the topic either. Then again, maybe because I’m an American minority as a black man, they felt when talking to me that I’d be interested in hearing about their brown skinned minorities.
Sorry Steve!
You are right, the discussion about Muslims is hot, and hot for over 6 years. But what is the discussion about?
The discussion is bases on emotions and not on rational/scientific arguments, saying that big group of people, based on religion or nationality, don’t fit in society and should go where they came from. Further more are there voices that want to make social convention (how to threat each other) manifest. This is so said, because these voices deny dynamics, plurality and development in society. Politicians score point in the public opinion when using anti-intellectual underbelly statements. This makes the political landscape poor, because the intellectual/political elite doesn’t have any proper answers that have the same implication. Makes me sad and non political.
Most of this drama happens in the media, on TV and in newspapers but on street level, thank god, not much occurs.
I think the same thing happens in loads of different societies with a multi ethnic society but still a majority that has the hegemony (hope this last sentence makes any sense). And because of the similarity in treating minorities i think that the discussion is fundamentally wrong blaming the ethnicity or religion, instead we should look at the social-economic part of the problem…….
Sorry to be so off topic but it is pretty fundamental….
Maarten – You’re not off topic at all. Quite the opposite actually.
People who defend Islam, Islamization, “multiculturalism” and unchecked mass immigration use purely emotional arguments. Their opponents use rational arguments.
That’s because they don’t fit in and don’t want to fit in.
Socio-economics have nothing to do with it. Muslims have the same pattern of behavior everywhere, even in countries where they form the majority and/or have great wealth. Their religion is at fault.
Sorry man, you missed my point. In Spain the natives have the same attitude about migrants from lest say Latin America. Last time i checked the Muslim religion was not really happening in Guatemala, Costa Rica and Columbia. My point is that the most notable minority, where ever, say in the western world, is treated in and projected in the more or less the same way. This doesn’t make it an religious matter of discussion.
Furthermore saying that a religion that is spread over 50 countries and and over 1.000.000.000 people is a fault is pretty simple isn’t it? Comments like saying that THE RELIGION is at fault would make me pretty angry as well when i would be practising the Ramadan right now and giving part of my income to the poor.
It’s all about religion. Muslims behave a certain way due to their religion, and this makes infidels resent them.
It’s also pretty simple that the WTC was brought down by airplanes instead of explosives planted by Zionist agents, yet that’s exactly what happened. Not everything is complicated. Again, Muslims exhibit the same pattern of behavior and beliefs no matter where they are.
Of course it does. You’re reacting emotionally, not rationally.
Muslims practise little if any charity.
[...] presents My European Tip, Part 5: Amsterdam posted at The Rawness, saying, “My trip to Amsterdam and interacting with the [...]
[...] presents My European Tip, Part 5: Amsterdam posted at The Rawness, saying, “My trip to Amsterdam and interacting with the [...]
I am swedish, girl and I?m not sure how I would react to the Red Light. In sweden prostitution is regarded criminal, disrespectful to or opressional to women (and men) and indecent and very tabou. I don?t like it as a phenomenon, I find it groce to be emotionally biased from what you do sexually and the creepy thing of “buying” other people?s sexuality. and as a feminist ( well I?m swedish, I run for both sexes rights, though) I also get groced-out about the fact that the whores are women and the whole unequality touch of it. I also think its degrading to men to pay sex with money and treat women as things, even if its a fantasy more than a desperate trick.
I noticed the author has been to stureplan area in stockholm and though I have no judgements, this really is regarded as the shallow districts were most ?thegame?-game lurks. otherwise men don?t pay for women?s drinks alot, we pay or own or spend on each other, sometimes girls on boys. 
)
In sweden we are very sexually demoralized, lol, and get sexual easily from own iniiative or without money at least.
( also I just want to throw in a torch on the sthlm pages, I don?t have a problem with your report at all, but swedish men and women do can conversize and some do it very swagger, stimulating, charming, funny and deep. both sexes! and girls pick up men, and arent regarded as sluts at all, more like cool equal women. just get out of stureplan man!
In sweden, this is not a torch though, other culture?s mating games are as interesting, but also in sweden we talk with people of the other sex quite easily without necessarily regarding them as sexual objects, more like a cool person, but then again if they fascinates and appeal you you can easily mate up with them and go home have sex within 10 minutes. maybe they become a partner, maybe a ONS, maybe a pal, maybe a f-body. its totallt equal and the further relationship-ment depends on the person and how you team up and how intrigued you get. but there are no big mating-process whatsoever, there are no etiquettes and no dating-system at all. either you?re a pal, a fuckmate, a girl/boyfriend or something in between or alternating over time. but it?s a matter of personality and not gender mating processes.
funny to hear about the dutch intellectuals.
I am really afraid by the dating games in the US, they seem so gimmicky, although I like the US very much in whole and is inspired of the country.
but some things seem so conservative, especially equalitywise.
haha, I think I meant “f-buddy”. anyway.. I really appreciate a foreigners look at sthlm nightlife but I just needed to get that out of the system. Stureplan is mating-wise the most conservative blocks in whole Sweden.. we are pretty individualistic when it comes to mating game, and women are very active and most of all, NOT regarded as sluts at all! it?s completely safe to be aggressively about sexual contacts/whatever as a girl here. But personality must be fascinating ( well not in 3. am of course) rather than process. sorry if I nag about this, but it?s really true that its painless to pickup here and girls are almost like boys. but in stureplan, it?s more american/continental were girls are trophys and boys are the supporters.
So em, where in Stockholm are the better places to hang out? I spent most of my time in Stureplan but discovered places like Sofo only on my very last day unfortunately…